This morning while The Girl and I were at the table doing math Judd the Red Chicken was working on his piano and getting frustrated. In the past he has said that he wished he was born without fingers so he wouldn't be expected to play the piano, today there was a variation to the theme... In a quick dramatic movement he was lying prone on the floor surrounded by his scattered Thompson piano workbooks.
"Ugh," he flopped over onto his back and hit the floor with a fist, "I want to say a bad word. I want to say it so bad that the person who invented it is my worst enemy... for inventing a word that I want to say and can't. Mom, can I just go in the bathroom and say it?"
"Yep."
The Girl guessed, based on a Ramona book, that it was "probably guts," and continued working on her math. I tiptoed to the bathroom door and heard: "damnitdamnitdamnitDAMNITdamnit."
Undoubtedly a lot of folks have been figuratively (or literally, I don't know) having similar moments in their bathrooms today. The Dad and I were talking on the phone this morning when he called to say, "Hello" from work and we both commented on feeling some sadness for the Romney family. We are impressed that the race was as close as it was, and glad that ultimately the Mormon-thing didn't factor in too hard (come on, we're weird, but not that much weirder than anybody else...).
The kids and I watched Romney's stoic speech -- I cannot fathom giving a speech like that while being criminally exhausted, and not crying. Then we watched Obama's. I liked it. While I know that they all have to say nice things about their opponents in order to not look like a cad, Obama's nod to Romney was well crafted. First he had the lead in -- saying that whether a citizen held an Obama sign or a Romney sign they should be proud of their activity, and then he honored Mitt's parents and applauded them all for their dedication to the country. Because it had some specifics, it felt genuine. And frankly, my kids are still young enough to think that statements like that are always genuine, so he was an example to them of being gracious and inclusive. I really only have one critique of his speech: when he said that there is a furniture maker whose kids can grow up to be engineers I kind of think it would have been cool if he would have then said, "And there is an engineer whose kids can can grow up to be furniture makers." But, if he emailed me his speech for my feedback it got lost somewhere in the ether.
These are the two questions the kids asked me after watching the speech:
The Girl: WHY can't they have two dogs?
The Boy: He's going to do his job, right? And pardon a turkey at Thanksgiving?
Another example that my kids had today was a total stranger (as opposed to our pal Barack). Being so cold out, we went to the gym at our church this morning for our running club. Up on the stage, there were some boxes of donations for the hurricane victims, and my kids found something that made them audibly gasp in unison:
They were blown away... why would Ralph's owners abandon him if he is still loved?
"That's a real donation... a real sacrifice," I explained. "It's one thing to give away extra stuff, but it's really awesome when somebody gives away something that they love or need, because they think that somebody else needs it more."
They both backed away from the pig in the box with a reverence. There are some lessons that you can't construct. Thank you, Ralph's family.
We didn't have any homework tonight, so we went out for a tiny walk in the snow (we were careful to avoid walking under trees, as Mayor Bloomberg reminded us that many limbs were probably weakened by the storm and might snap under the weight of snow). It's pretty out there, but I'm feeling worried for the people still without power.
