Vote early and often

A couple of weeks ago, David took Willliam with him to the local community center for early voting, while I ran errands on my own. The next Tuesday, I packed William into the car and took him with me to a nearby Methodist church, and he sat by my side in his stroller and ate sweet potato puffs while I voted in the fellowship hall. To his delight, William received a patriotic "I voted!" sticker both times and was clearly delighted by his reward for doing his civic duty.

We have talked both before and since about voting, and why we vote, and how everyone has a right to make a decision for the candidate they like best, etc. etc. And while I usually don't get into politics on this blog, I will say that I had decided that I wanted to vote for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. William was charmed by the candidate's name, and he began saying, "Bock mama! Obama!" over and over again.

Well apparently, voting made a pretty big impression on my not-quite-two-year-old son. We drove by that Methodist church a few days ago, and William pointed to it and said, "Bock mama!" He did the same thing when we parked by the community center next to the library, where early voting was held. And then tonight, he walked over to his high chair, studied it, then walked behind it and began pushing his fingers at the back of the elevated seat. From behind the little plastic-zoo-animal-printed seat, we heard his little voice say, "Obama! Obama!" I leaned over from my chair to see waht he was doing, and it looked like he was pretending to vote. It appeared that he was pretending the high chair was a voting booth and he was pressing buttons, like he saw he pressing choices on the electronic screen in the voting booth at the church, and he was announcing who he had decided to vote for.

So rather than pretending to be a cowboy or a fireman*, my child is pretending to vote. I've always been a bit of an election junkie because of my background in the newspaper world, but who knew that the tendency would manifest itself in my own son at such a tender age?

Just so you know, though, William has also started pretending to be Spider-Man. David has taught him how to shoot webs from his wrists. Er, how to pretend to shoot webs from this wrists. So he's not just Wacky Voting Kid. He's also Spidey. Not sure if Wacky Voting Kid can shoot anything from his wrists.