A NASA astronaut brought her 4-year-old son to a spacesuit photo shoot - and the pictures will melt your heart

"[S]ometimes, I bring him to work with me. Not sure who enjoys it more!" McClain said on Tuesday while sharing this image.

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When a Twitter user asked McClain what's more difficult — staying or going — she responded: "No easy answer there."

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"One provides immediate comfort, the other achieves not only life long goals but also teaches life long lessons. Gotta play the long game here," she added. "But it doesn’t make missing out on waffles with the kiddo in the morning any easier. Most parents can relate."

McClain told a BART-train-driving Twitter user who sounded envious that her son "would trade me for a train driver without a second thought."

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"He thinks it's pretty normal" to be an astronaut, she said. "His teacher asked their class what their parents did, and he told her I am an engineer. I asked if he told her anything else. He responded, 'Mama, NONE of my friends have ever met an engineer....'"

McClain isn't the only astronaut to get adventurous with her NASA photo shoots. Former astronaut Leland Melvin, who used to fly aboard the space shuttle, brought his rescue dogs Jake and Scout.

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But NASA's portraits don't show the Sokol flight suit that McClain will actually wear when she launches to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

"[Y]ou have to try out said suit for nearly two hours while pressurized to make sure nothing hurts," McClain said on Twitter. "Well, that nothing hurts too badly. Mission accomplished. My first act in my new real spacesuit was to sit and watch a movie! Oh and play with my gloves."

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