Vote by Mail - blah blah blah

Presidential primary season is in full swing and soon we will all be inundated with political ads to the point of nausea by our Republican candidate, the Obama campaign and a ridiculous number of SuperPACs and whoever else.  

I love politics! And I used to really love voting. But not so much anymore.

I grew up near Chicago, which has an "interesting" voting history. You know, your dead pet can vote there! =) I still remember the first time I got to vote. I went with my mom to a church near our house that was set up as our local polling place. We drove there, parked in the parking lot, went inside. I am sure I showed my ID or maybe my voter registration card. Someone marked my name off a list and gave me a ballot. I went into a booth, pulled the curtain, put the ballot in the machine and poked holes for my nominees. (This was way back in the age of walking up hill both ways to school, before hanging chads and electronic voting.)  When I was done, someone gave me a sticker that said I VOTED TODAY! And I wore it with pride. 

Can't you feel the excited energy! 

In the fall of 2000, I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, attending the UofM School of Social Work. I saw Ralph Nadar speak. I voted absentee in Illinois, my first experience with 'mail in' voting. I remember watching the 2000 Presidential election returns with a handful of Social Work grad students and another handful of teenagers at the teen drop in center where I was interning. 

And then a few years later I moved. To Oregon. Did you know that Oregon was the first state in the country to go to a "mail in only" ballot for elections? I didn't know that when I moved there, and I would guess that most people aren't even aware that your quirky Pacific NW states vote this way! Because, yes, in the past few years Washington has also become a "mail in only" state. (Though maybe not officially so, because Washington cancelled our Republican primary this year and we will be having caucuses instead. I don't think a "mail in only caucus" would work very well!) 

I guess there are numerous benefits to mail in only voting. The primary one has got to be financial. It saves the state a lot of money.  As a voter though, I hate it. 

Here's how we vote out here in wacky land:

A few weeks before "election day", your ballot comes in the mail, along with a gigantic mailed with what are essentially paid ads/position statements by candidates, and another with paid position statements on the various ballot meausres to be voted on. If you are a responsible, type A person, you read the thrilling mind numbing mailer, and then remove your ballot from multiple envelopes. You color in the oval next to the candidates you want, being sure to completely fill in the oval, just like you did when you took the SAT 100 years ago. And make that mark dark, for goodness sakes!  [For those of you who are not responsible or Type A, you sit your ballot in the pile of mail waiting to be opened and forget about it until just before or possibly after the voting deadline.]

You put your ballot in an evelope. Sign it. Put it in another envelope. 

Here's where it gets exciting...

You put a stamp on the envelope and put it in the mail. Done! You just voted in Oregon or Washington! 

Oh, and you probably did that well before the actual election day. 

Who needs the buildup and tension that leads up to the actual election day? Just vote 10 days before and get it over with.  At least that way those annoying phone calls stop once the rolls show that you have already voted.

But, a word of caution, if you vote too soon, you may be sorry! If you vote and your candidate does something stupid, you can't get that ballot back. 

People who are used to voting by mail generally seem to think it's a good idea. You don't have to make time in your day to go somewhere to vote. If it is raining, you don't have to *gasp* go outside in the rain! But as someone who has voted using both methods, it is so much more fun to vote in person, to experience the energy and build up to that one day where everyone goes out to vote. Plus, you get to wear a sticker! 

Queen of hidden clutter

I resisted New Years resolutions this year, but have been thinking about setting some "around the house" goals to get me more organized and make me feel better about our home.  Our house isn't regularly an embarrassing mess - I admit that I could be better about dusting and mopping, but we are pretty good as a family about not leaving tons of clutter and stuff all of the place. But, I have a hidden secret. Literally, hidden.

I am a cabinet and closet clutterer.

If you walk into my kitchen, it seems relatively clean and put together. Open a cabinet, however, and who knows how many pans, tupperware containers or paper cups may fall on you. Hutch? same. Hall closet? Same. Garage? same.

So, I am setting a goal for myself that this year I am going to organize my storage clutter around the house. And I'm not going to be grand and say "I'm going to do it in 1 day!"  I am going to try to do one location a month! Easy! These are the kinds of jobs where I quit before I begin because it seems like an enormous task, but really when you get into it, it doesn't take long. And it feels good to finish! And to open your kitchen cabinet and not have every pan you own slide out on to your foot! (Or your husband's foot)

Some areas that will be un-cluttered and organized this year:

* "stuff" baskets on the floating office shelf
* entry closet
* kitchen cabinets - ALL OF THEM
* hutch cabinet
* garage (though Eric will most definitely get to this one before I do since it bothers him more)
* my dresser
* playroom toys!!
* upstairs linen closet
* laundry room
* backyard storage container

And, while I'm at it, a few other around the house things I'd like to tackle this year:

* throw away this thing, which has been sitting in pieces in our side yard for about a year now
* build and actually use 2 raised planters from our awesome landscape design plan
* paint the playroom/guest room

Snow Day!

Today we had our annual school's cancelled, snow day. Where we live we get measurable snow about once a year (this statement based on the whopping 2.5 winters we have lived here). Yes, we live in a place where it hardly ever snows, so when it does people FREAK OUT and everything is cancelled. (I am from Chicago, so I'm kind of a "I can handle the winter driving" snob, though I definitely defer to my Denver-raised husband.)

In short, I am the middle person here:



And I am slowly becoming that totally bald guy whatever-it-is on the left.

My kids are loving having a day off of school, though Big Girl was a little upset about missing kindergarten today. And they were both pretty mad at mom last night that I wouldn't drive them 10 miles to swim lessons. I told a "mom-lie" and said lessons were cancelled, even though I think technically they weren't. But, trust me, no one was there.

We spent today playing in the snow/sleet. Snow play started in the backyard, with Little Man using my scraper/brush to clean the play structure. And the pine tree. And the patio table. And the worker trucks.  Big Girl is more like I was as a kid. She takes FOR-EH-VER to get all of her winter stuff on, all the while insisting we wait for her, and then after about 5 minutes starts whining about being cold and goes back inside to cry. (This would be harsh, except I totally acknowledge being the same way.)

Then we moved out front for some sledding fun. One nice thing about having a vacant house on our street is that said vacant house has a pretty steep driveway perfect for a short little kid sledding session. We spent some time sledding and throwing snow at each other. Same thing repeated again this afternoon. Big Girl = big, overly emotional drama fest. Pathetically standing in the office with the window cracked open saying, "Mama? When are you and Little Man going to come inside?" Me and Little Man kicking and throwing snow like crazy people.

Then Little Man asked me to "sled" him. So I walked him up and down the street a few times. Then I thought I should be more fun than this, like his Daddy probably would be. And I got this insane idea to try to run [in my snow boots that are a size and a half too big with one insole that is all bunched up] down the street [unplowed of course] pulling Little Man on the sled in probably 4-6 inches of snow.

I made it up and down our street for two laps and then I felt like this:



I am very thankful that Little Man only weighs about 35lbs. And that our house is warm. And that we are having chicken pot pie for dinner!

Movie Review: The Ides of March

Eric and I just watched The Ides of March, a new political drama with a whole bunch of actors we really like: George Clooney, Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ryan Gosling.

Short plot summary: Stephen (Ryan Gosling) is an up and coming campaign media manager working alongside campaign manager Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) in the presidential campaign of Governor Morris (George Clooney).  The race between Morris and Pullman is tight - think Obama/Clinton from 4 years ago. The polls in Ohio, the next primary, are too close to call. There is a key endorsement up for grabs.  Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) is the campaign manager for rival candidate Pullman.  When Duffy contacts Stephen about jumping ship and joining the Pullman campaign, basically all hell breaks loose. Stephen receives some information about the Pullman strategy that doesn't look good for his candidate. Will he remain loyal to Morris and Paul, even though he begins to doubt Morris's character? Will he flip to the surging campaign?

Thoughts: About 20 minutes into this, Eric said, "So, instead of watching real news people and political people go on and on and on about real presidential candidates, we're watching a movie with fake people doing basically the same thing?" With that, he took out his laptop and spent the rest of the movie surfing the internet. Since I'm a political junkie, I like the movie. I understood the message of the film. I liked it, but I didn't think it was the best movie I've ever seen.

Oh, yeah. Did I mention Ryan Gosling was there? In the "reading in bed the morning after sex" scene, he was wearing an undershirt. I think this was a subtle, or not so subtle, "this is a serious movie so Ryan Gosling's abs probably shouldn't be prominent" act. In Crazy Stupid Love or The Notebook, you can bet we wouldn't gotten some ab action!

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.  The movie was "pretty", the script was good, the music helped the tension, the acting was good. It missed really grabbing me and keeping me enthralled. Maybe a few peeks at the Gosling abs would have helped!

The Embarrassing Parent

My kids aren't old enough yet for me to be embarrassing to them. Sure, we have already had our share of dramatic flouncing teenage girl angst from Big Girl. She started the "I hate you!", stomp to her room and slam the door, move sometime around her 2nd birthday.  We'll be in trouble a few years from now.

Tonight on facebook a friend I went to college with posted about waving to his elementary school daughter while she was at recess, making fun of himself because his daughter did not return the wave or acknowledge him. "Well, I guess I have officially become the embarrassing dad. This will come in handy when she is a teenager."

The thought reminded me of my own dad, back in the middle school or early high school years.  I remember our family walking through the mall and him suddenly speaking really loudly in a horrible Australian accent.  Or ordering in restaurants with a bad accent. If I remember right, he even spoke pretend sign language on at least one occasion.  Of course, I was mortified, though I probably also found it funny. I remember my mom acting embarrassed too. I wonder if she really was, or if that was part of the "show"?

And I wonder what silly things Eric and I will do that will embarrass our kids someday. I hope it is something fun like that. I'll have to work on something like this...

Potty Poop, an update

2 days in a row of Little Man pooping in the potty! Hooray!

The first thing he said after he went?

"Now, take a picture of it for Daddy. Then call my teacher."

What my life has become

Not that I had a fascinating life before kids, but I am realizing tonight how far into MommyZone I have descended.  As I have probably mentioned before, Little Man, who turned 4 in the fall, still refuses to poop in the potty.  The struggle has been intensified since he finally potty trained this summer, just in time to start preschool.  But he wears a diaper to poop.  He will actually ASK for a diaper, or ask to take a nap, so he can access his diaper and poop in it.

After talking to friends, searching the internet, reading some books and a visit with the pediatrician, we have tried "everything" to get him to poop in the potty.  He pees on the potty, so he isn't afraid the potty is going to eat him. He flushes the potty, so he isn't afraid of the sound.  He knows when he has to poop.

We've tried bribery, charts, regularly sitting him on the potty, begging, laxatives and withholding his diaper.  The last time we withheld the diapers (October), he didn't poop for 4 days until I relented and gave them back. Didn't want him to end up hospitalized or something from impacted poop!

The pediatrician told me in November I just need to let it go. "Eventually every kid potty trains and gives up diapers." True. But easier said than done. I've been dealing with diapers since 2006. Disposable for his sister, cloth for him, and now disposable for him because he's been in them so long that he used them to death! I just want to be done. And I want my kid to poop in the potty of just being a stubborn... well, stubborn stubborn-head.  The pediatrician also said that it is about control and that as long as Little Man has any sense that I am trying to push him into pooping on the potty, he appears to be resisting me. So, therefore, I need to eliminate the power struggle.

So since early November, I've been practicing "letting it go" and not caring that my 4 year old still poops in diapers. And I have to clean it up.

On Friday, Little Man had a particularly disgusting post-nap diaper.  As I gagged and cleaned him up, an idea struck! I told Little Man that if he pooped in his diaper from now on, he would be responsible to clean himself up. That Mama is done cleaning up poopy diaper butts.

His response: complete RAGE. (And, if you know Little Man, rage actually doesn't happen that often.)
He stomped around and shouted about how he would NOT clean his poopy butt.  But I held firm.

So that was Friday and today is Monday. We are on day 3 of no poop, because of course now that pooping in the diaper has apparently been taken away as an option, he is holding it again. (The reaction definitely makes me wonder if the "dealing with the cleanup" may be part of the interest in still pooping in diapers.)

Yesterday, Little Man actually agreed to try to poop on the potty a few times. Even this is an improvement. We spent 40 minutes in the bathroom last night, counting. And then shouting "Poop! You come out! Go into the potty!" and then making exaggerated pushing sounds and faces. But no poop.

Tonight though... VICTORY!!!

YES! My Little Man pooped in the potty!!

Wanna know what I did first?

I took a picture of the poop and text messaged it to his Daddy! (Since he was presenting his school budget to the school board, I'm sure he appreciated turning on his phone to find a picture of a giant poop!)

Then we called his teacher so he could say, "This is Little Man. I pooped in the potty. Hooray! Goodbye!"

And then I realized, there is something wrong with me. I TOOK A PICTURE OF MY SON'S POOP IN THE POTTY! And I don't even care! He pooped! In the potty!

Hooray!