All in Day’s Work:Election Wrap Up

I can’t beleive today is only Wednesday. It should be Thursday, maybe even Friday by now. I think that the build-up to election day, and election day itself stretched into many days in my mind.

My classroom was a buzz with the candidates’ names, yesterday, and children telling the tales of voitng with their parents. They all seemed to know who their parents were voting for, although none of them could tell me why.

After work, we attended a very fun, very patriotic election night party, and when our hosts revealed the adult drinks of choice (one for each party and an independent), we were all very sad that it was a Tuesday night and not Friday. The theme for the night was red, white, and blue–think Fourth of July meets Halloween.

Good food, good friends and good political discourse (and discussing our favorite SNL skits). Why, oh why does election day have to be a Tuesday and not a Friday? We were home by about 9pm, but it was fun while it lasted! We were up waaaayyy too late, and then up way too early this morning. Really, Starbucks should have given out free coffee today.

I was wondering what the day would bring today. We had the TV on before leaving the house, and MAM immediately saw and identifited the president elect. On the way to school, she had a revelation…..Barack Obama keeps his pants dry! (she likes to categorize people as those who are potty-trained and those who are not)

In the classroom, I got to try and explain the concept of taxes, and how it, is, in fact, different than stealing.

“He’s going to steal all of our money!”

“He doesn’t steal.”

“Yes he does! He’s going to take our money and give it to other people.”

“He deosn’t steal.”

And that’s where I had to jump in with introducing the concept of taxes.

Voting: Check

I voted today, three days early. I was confused on the whole early voting thing this year–I thought I had to do an actual absentee ballot via the mail. Turns out, you can totally go to a satellite location (our county had 2) and vote. I went today, and at 10:15, the line was wrapped around the building. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think I saw more voters at the polls today than I have in my 17 years of being eligible to vote.(side note…I’ve been eligible to vote now for nearly half my life. cool)

Two hours later, I was done, and glad that I can check that off my to-do list for the week. The idea of being late to work or late to pick up at daycare, and the idea of waiting in line with a three year old for hours (either before or after work) was just too much. So glad early voting was an option here. 
Now my only concern is that all of the ballots get to their respective precints and actually counted. 
One other Election Day tidbit: 
FREE COFFEE AT STARBUCKS IF YOU SAY YOU’VE VOTED! That’s right, a free tall brewed coffee for fufilling your civic duty. 
Is early voting a choice where you are? Did you vote early? Are you thinking that you’ll just suck it up and go Tuesday???
Enjoy the extra hour of sleep tonight!