Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Finally, Voting Day

As one of the "political analysts" on The Daily Show said last week: "Can we just f*&#ing vote already?!"

So, busy day. Because the boys' school is a polling site, we had to walk our kids into school rather than have a regular drop-off from the car. I parked down at J's house and we walked up the path, rather than fight traffic by the school.

That is not where I vote (since I don't live in that town), so I could go straight to class with the boys. We settled in to Micah's class for some Reading (every morning, parents are invited to join the kids for Free Reading Time).

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Sofia settled in with some of Micah's classmates:
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Then we visited Sam's classroom, where they were preparing for a school-wide election. Since Sam's class is the oldest, they ran the whole thing. Sam drew the ballot (I'll post it when the teacher sends home a copy), they registered all the kids in the school, and last week they presented Powerpoint slides about both candidates. There was also a ballot question on whether they should have Challah or Oreos for the Shabbat snack. (Obama, and Challah, won at MWJDS).

Sofia and I walked Sammy down to his reading teacher's office:Photobucket
and then played on the playground with friends for about an hour. I saw a mom I knew from EI - she was there to vote, with her son who is Sofia's age AND her twin 7 year old sons (the public schools were closed because of the election).

After the playgorund, we walked back to the car:
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Did some quick shopping, and met Sofia's friend M and her daddy at Starbucks and the bookstore for a Story Hour. It was fun. At first, Sofia would NOT pay attention to the lady reading the book, because she was too busy rearranging the displays. I grabbed her and made her sit on my lap for the 2nd story, which was a little better. Then there was coloring, which Sofia was TOTALLY into. She sprawled out in the middle of the space, legs akimbo. Every time I asked if she was done, she shook her head and said "no, no".

Got out eventually, did some errands (oh, the lure of the Arts & Crafts store - it's like a gravitational force pulling me in...this time, i bought some canvas totes for the boys' Webkinz to live in). Then we went back to Ashland to vote.

I'm not sure why Sofia decided that it was time to start Square Dancing right when we were waiting in line to check in. She kept spinning around under my arm... Our voting is done by fill-in-the-oval paper ballots, but I had to keep one hand on her. When she stopped dancing, she tried hanging off the edge of the not-too-steady voting desk, which was a bit scary.

It was quick, not much of a line (only 3 people ahead of me for check-in). DONE!

Went home, had lunch, let her watch one Signing Times video - today it was "week", the show about Days of the Week. Then I popped her back int he car, trying to get her to go to sleep.

I drove about 30 minutes, almost nodding off myself a few times, until she finally fell asleep. I drove up the driveway, stopped the car, and fell asleep myself for 20 minutes (IN the car). E called to tell me she was on her way over to babysit, so I attempted to transfer Sofia to her crib, but to no avail.

I was a few minutes late to get the boys, but we have a great network of parents who will watch over other kids, so my friend L had mine. I let them play for nearly an hour, since Micah did not have piano lesson today (teacher canceled it).

Eventually we got to Tae Kwan Do, where Sam was testing for his promotion to Green Belt! They usually do promotional testing on Saturdays, but we will not go on Shabbos, so they do a private test. This time, it was only semi-private; a girl from his class at school was also testing (just for her first level stripe), for the same reason.

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He was SO proud! And it was tougher to concentrate, with A and her dad and brother there (brother is very loud). But Sammy did a great job.

Back home, he watched the beginning of the election coverage while I made dinner, but had a fit when E and I told him to go to sleep. The time-change really hits him, and he's been a bit of a wreck all week. And David being away again also has Sam a bit messed up. So he needed his sleep. But I promised he could turn on the TV first thing in the morning.

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