Voting Week

I've gotten way behind on blogging, so I'm going to start trying to catch up. First things first: Voting Week. This was another one of those weeks that's more fun for Mom than anyone else. Still, I did feel the kids learned something from it.

I love voting. It's honestly one of my favorite things to do in life -- completely don't understand why so many people don't do it -- and it makes me want to celebrate my country. So for me, the first week of November is a very patriotic week, and Election Day is a very patriotic holiday. On top of everything else, I'm currently reading David McCullough's John Adams, which is making me feel sentimental about the early days of America. Every day last week we had something "all-American" for dinner, such as clam chowder, fried chicken, pancakes, and hot dogs. Every day I sang a different patriotic song (or two). Most of this, I'm pretty sure, went soaring right over the twins' heads.

On Monday we read some books about voting, and then we actually voted on something: what to have for dessert the next night. I provided an "Official Voter Information Guide" with photos of the three choices (apple pie, apple strudel, and apple crisp), and we had ballots to fill out. Dad had taken the day off to do some phonebanking, so he voted too. There was one vote for apple strudel and three for apple pie. I sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee," but boos were not impressed.

Tuesday of course was Election Day, so we read another book about voting and then we went with Mom to vote. For REAL. Only problem was that it was too scary. I've taken the boos with me to vote in practically every election since they were born, but this is one of those things that gets harder as they get older, not easier. We finally had to go home, and I voted later in the day, when they were at daycare. We sang "America the Beautiful" and for dessert that night we ate...

...this beauty! It was very good, as were the election results....

On Wednesday I was too blissed out by those election results to concentrate on school. But we did make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and we sang both "Yankee Doodle" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy." I told the boos that I've always liked "Yankee Doodle Dandy" because of that line about "Born on the 4th of July" which of course I always change to "Born on the 5th of July." Boos were concerned because their birthdays are not in July, so how could they sing the song? I told them it didn't matter, but they were not convinced. We sang "Yankee Doodle" again instead.

On Thursday we made flags. I'd gotten some little American flags from Walmart (made in the USA, amazingly enough, not China), and we'd been waving them around all week. I'd printed out a sheet with lots of different countries' flags, so we looked at those too. Then I made a German flag out of paper (since boos have German relatives), and some other flags out of pretty colored cloth, and attached them to skewers. Baby A made a flag in the shape of an H, and Baby B made a large flag with different colors on it. We sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "You're A Grand Old Flag," and we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we stuck our flags in the dirt outside, where they continue to wave in the breeze.

On Friday, we sang "God Bless America," and looked at money and talked about the US presidents whose pictures are on the money. (This was supposed to be a math exercise, but we didn't do much with it.) I'd wanted to get a placemat with all the presidents' faces on it, but hadn't made it over to our local toy store during the week. So I'd printed out something off the internet, but it was blurry and not very helpful.

On Saturday, I finally took the time to go to Just Imagine and get the placemat -- so it's mine now (the twins have Thomas Train placemats and Rocket Boy has one with a turkey on it that the twins made at daycare last year). I cannot express how happy I am that there will be no need for a new version until 2016, the universe willing.

This morning, Baby A said to me, "Mom, where are all the girl presidents?"

"There haven't been any yet," I told him. "But there will be." (I'm rooting for Hillary.)