Toads-in-the-Hole

Happy Election Day!

At Adelaide's school today, lessons in civic responsibility abound. The students were dressed in a sea of red, white, and blue. In Adelaide's classroom, they read a book about a duck who ran for President. Adelaide brought home a worksheet about the book that had a blank for the child to write "This is who I voted for" and in the blank Adelaide wrote "secret"; I think not only lessons about civic responsibility, but civic manners were discussed in her first grade classroom. Adelaide also brought home an Election Day word search and hunted for words like "ballot," "button," "vote," "republican," and "democrat". Three cheers for great new vocab! And finally, Adelaide's school was a precinct polling station, so while the children cast their mock ballots in the library, moms and dads cast their actual ballots in the music room. In the spirit of civic manners, I won't tell you who Adelaide told me she voted for, but I can tell that this was the most fun I've had on Election Day in a long time.

Update: I bounced out of bed this morning, stumbled toward Joel, and asked "Who's president? Who won?" Last night, we eschewed our usual nighttime movie (we're working our way through Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings) for lots of clicking on our laptops to watch the returns come in, but I couldn't keep my eyes open after 10 p.m. and so went to bed without knowing the final results.

This morning, to wrap up our civics lesson, Adelaide, Henry, and I ate our eggs and yogurt while watching the President's acceptance speech on YouTube. At one point, Obama said something like, "And I applaud MItt Romney for all of his hard work on the campaign trail ..." Adelaide snorted and looked at me and said, "That's weird! Mitt Romney and President Obama are going camping?!" Election Day lessons abound ... Even our President could improve his diction! Thank goodness he'll have the next four years to practice. ;)