Election Night!

Four years ago, I voted by myself on my way home from teaching. Nikos was only a year old, at daycare, and Maya was still only a few months in utero.

Today, I got to share the experience with BOTH my babies! They, especially Nikos, were so much more into it than I thought they would be. I had prepared them to stand in line for a while, since our town only has two polling locations, and I knew that ours had been crowded when my neighbor-friend had gone. And yet, it was practically empty when we went! We were in and out in only a few minutes, much to the disappointment of Nikos. Seriously-- he complained that "voting was way too short!"

On a more positive note, our polling place was the local library... and the children's librarian (who we all love) decided to set up a little polling area for the kids. So after I was done, we went to the table, they chose their ballots, and I told them which little bubble to fill in (yes, I manipulated the vote... haha!). It was such a silly little thing, but it sparked SUCH interest in Nikos. He kept asking all day if "our guy" was going to win. I took it as a teachable moment to explain very basic differences in platform between "our guy" and the other one. He was so funny... he tends to see things as very black and white. And he instantly decided that the other guy was a BAD guy. I had to explain that he just had different ideas, and that I didn't agree with those ideas... but that it didn't make him a "bad guy." I'm not sure how much of that he heard-- he was determined to make sure that our guy won!

I told him that we wouldn't know the winner until very, very late tonight (far later than we would on the West Coast!), but that we could find out together first thing in the morning. And the kid BEGGED to stay up. And watch the news!!!! Anyone who knows Nikos knows that he hates the news with a passion (and he considers any non-kid programming "the news"). We watched the news together for a bit before he went to bed, so he could see some of the early returns. And he was really into it! I was floored!

Anyway, results aside (since we don't know what they are), I was really proud of my little citizen today. Maya was great, too, but she's younger... she just wasn't as into it as Nikos was. But boy, was he excited about it! I really hope our guy DOES win, because I feel like our little guy will be devastated if he doesn't. At least he already won in our (very blue) state. :)