Wednesday, November 7, 2012

That's it?!?!

I'd like to tell you that I am a shining example of someone who exercises their civic duty with regularity, but that would be an outright lie.  However, I do vote, and I recognize that as an American, voting is a privilege not many people in the world have.  I am a #spoiledbratAmericanwhoshouldalwaysvote.  I get it.

If you live in a battleground state, you could have lived under a rock and STILL known that there was a presidential election this year!  Yard signs, robocalls, Obama for American volunteers in every neighborhood...you couldn't escape the election if you wanted to.  The ads, the flyers, the knocks on the door, the ignored robocalls were all observed carefully by KIC.  When the topic came up of me voting, KIC said she wanted to go.  Always wanting to be a bastion of good example (HA!), I agreed instantly to take her with me.

The big day came and I was super excited to take KIC with me.  KIC, for her part, was super excited to go with me.  We talked about who I was voting for for President and where we would go to do so.  We got to the polling station and I showed her all the things we had to vote on (a whole page worth!).  My county is heavily into paper voting, so I showed KIC the bubbles to fill in and let her fill them in, all the while admonishing her to do it "carefully."  (Side note:  If it's voter fraud to let my 4 year old fill in the bubbles, have no fear.  I'm pretty sure we were so far outside the bubbles that two of my votes didn't count).  I didn't want to get too chatty in the polling station for fear people would know who I was voting for (preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure that's taboo). so I just pointed at the bubbles and she filled them in.

As we left, me BURSTING with pride, the lady gave us two "I voted stickers!" 

Me:  Do you know what this says?
KIC:  No.
Me (so so proud):  It says "I Voted!"  (which, by the way, Virginia has THE lamest "I voted " stickers ever!  At least from a four year old's perspective.)
KIC:  But we didn't vote yet!!
Me:  ...  We just did!
KIC:  Oh.

I am starting to feel like being a parent is part mythbuster/part biggest disappointer ever.  She wouldn't even wear the sticker.  Regardless of the bubble bursting disappointment, we voted, and exercised our civic duty.  Maybe next time, I can fill in the bubbles alone.  ;-)

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