Family vote

When I came down to make coffee this morning, Ben called out from his still-dark room, "So, who won?"

He was referring, of course, to the election. I let him know that "our guy" (the Green candidate) didn't win. Maybe next time. (In Hull? Unlikely, but I was being kind for the sake of the child.)

We took Ben and Constance with us last night when we went to vote. What an experience! First, we walked the kilometre or so to the church, and enjoyed the beautiful fall evening and the kids' enthusiastic chatter the whole way. We of course explained what we were doing and why, and prepped them on what to expect when we got there.

Constance helped me vote. I seriously had not decided when I picked up the little pencil. We went over the ballot, looked at the different parties and people listed, and finally we decided together. (Luckily there was no line-up, because this took a few minutes.) Ben went through the same process with McPie.

McPie had to register because he was not on the electors list. The fellow signing him up was chit-chatting with him and Ben when Constance walked up. The fellow asked Ben if this was his sister. Did he have any other brothers or sisters? Ben shook his head no, paused, then said: "But my mom is having a baby. [He points over at me, standing a few steps away.] A fin du mars."
Fellow waves and grins. I blush madly.

On the way home, Constance walked with me, and I explained how the House of Commons works: how the country was divided into sections, and each section picked one person (like we had just done), and one person from each section gets to go to the Parliament (which the kids just visited with the school last week), and the Party with the most folks in the Parliament gets to run the government. She was pretty intrigued. And then she decided that we had the best family in the world because we were all so very happy. I'm not sure of the connection to the election, but I'm guessing it had something to do with the night air, and anyway I'm the last one to argue with that conclusion!

At home, Ben was disappointed that the election show wasn't on TV yet. McPie had promised that he could watch a little of the results. Instead, he settled for a homemade pumpkin square, and some quiet reading in bed.

Speaking of which - glory of glories - our 7-year-old has discovered the joy of solitary reading! He found a series of books (graphic chapter books, actually, featuring this cartoon creature names Ariol) that he just loves, and he reads by himself: at the dining table, the kitchen table, in bed, alone, or with people around. Almost silently; we can occasionally hear him murmur under his breath as he figures out words he doesn't know. He exclaims randomly to no one in particular "oh, this story is so good". It was barely a year ago that he was reading his first words! And high-energy extrovert that he is, I'm frankly quite amazed that he's so into this activity. But I guess I shouldn't be... The kids surprise and amaze us pretty regularly. (Constance's dinnertime, pre-voting rant about how we should implement communism à la Thomas More's Utopia is yet another example from last night. Of course, she didn't use the words "communism" or "utopia" - we taught her those in the course of the conversation - but in trying to describe how there should be no money, and how everyone should work and share things freely, she pretty much nailed the main tenets.)

Well, that was last night's excitement. Now, I'm in the airport, waiting to board my flight to Nova Scotia. I'll post more from there!