The election

No...this will not be a stance on my political views...only an interesting night as seen from a mom's perspective.  I like to listen to what the kids are saying, and try to see if there is a teaching moment.  So Tuesday evening came, and while the elementary school had their student council elections, I had thought that  by 3rd grade they would at least talk about the electoral college.  Not so, I found out.  I told the kids we were going to watch the returns to see who would be the president.  I printed out the electoral college map and explained it to Trevor as best I could.  Trevor really didn't understand why we were watching it.  Bottom line, I explained that it was only something that they reported on every 4 years.  The next time he would get to experience it, was when he is in 7th grade.  YIKES!!!  I remember the last election and Trevor being in preschool.  Yep...seems like yesterday.

Anyway, the returns started coming in, and Gwen was completely uninterested.  Not really something I would expect a 5 year old to grasp.  I became entranced, the way I do when I see numbers rolling across the screen.  And numbers adding to other numbers?  Whoa....WAY too much excitement for me.  Trevor was hoping for an Obama win, so when Romney came out with an early lead, he got scared.  I tried to explain that states like California were yet to come, and he seemed to settle down.  I could tell he was also getting entranced by the numbers and the news kept up to date on countdowns to pole closings and such.  He started to color the states each candidate won and noticed trends like how Obama won the entire east coast and Romney had most of the south and central regions.  I let him stay up later than normal, and he had to give up his reading time, but like I explained...it only comes every 4 years.

He finally went up to bed at 9:30 with the promise that I would color in the states as far as I stayed up.  The race was called shortly after, but I was still entranced by the amendment voting that was taking place in our state.  Again, watching those numbers count upward was so mesmerizing!  Two nights after the Madonna concert, where I stayed up to 1:30 on a school night, I stayed up past 11:30 on election night.  As I figured, Trevor woke up at 6:30 and needed to know right away who won.  He completed his map, and brought it to school to explain to everyone what he learned that night.

I think it was a pretty educational night!