How my election day really turned out

As planned, I packed the children into the car to take them to vote yesterday, and started to tell them my usual stories about why voting matters. My older son is the type of child who says, "Mama, tell me the story of Rachel Carson and DDT again." So he was, as usual, a receptive audience. My kindergartner, not so much. "Mama," in a somewhat exasperated tone, "Mrs. Walsh read that to us already in our class magazine. I know all that already." Oh. Fine. Of course, she didn't--this is the same child who almost convinced his father, based on the amount of detail and narrative consistency, that instead of Spanish and Tech Ed. his class was having Ninja training lessons. But still it took the wind right out of my sails. And then we got to the polling place, and the line was immense, which I've never seen before, and I hadn't brought them anything with which they could occupy their sweet little selves, and I got stuck between McCain supporters, who were saying things such as "George Bush has made the country so much safer" so I left and came back in the evening without my children. Oh well. I tried.

I stayed up much later than my regular bedtime last night. Partly this is because my youngest announced just before bedtime that Mrs. Walsh had told them to make six model dinosaurs "from any material" and I didn't feel like arguing about it. But mainly, it was because I was glued to the New York Times website--I'm from Virginia originally and I just had to see if it went blue. So nail-biting, watching the last few counties reporting. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

And now, seeing as I am up at my usual time anyway, I shall go read about Zombie cheerleaders for the Cybils.