3-year-olds and the voting process

I guess making the decision to take 3-year-olds to any event where they have to wait in line is a lot like deciding to get pregnant with #2...once you do it the first time and some time has lapsed, you forget the un-fun parts of the process and somehow only remember the good stuff.

That must have been what happened this morning. I woke up with this oh-so-patriotic feeling and decided to take my twin 3-year-old boys to vote with me. In my mind, I thought: "They get up at the crack of dawn, so why not have a little fun with them before school while we wait to vote?" And in some ways, it was just that--we got there at 6:30am and the line was already hundreds of people long, so my kids were fascinated and asking lots of questions about why these adults were waiting in line to go to the "big kid school." I was smiling and laughing, thinking what inquisitive and funny kids I have... Well, an hour later, the excitement factor had definitely worn off, and thankfully, my husband had arrived and was helping me wrangle the boys into line every few minutes.

The problem? No kid at that age should be forced to stand in a line for an hour let alone two. You'd think I'd know this by now...instead, about an hour into it, the fun really began... One son found a golf ball and proceeded to hurl it at the "Don't Park Here" sign while he cracked up. Both boys saw one of their school teachers, Ms. Klauber, and spent 5-10 minutes calling out different variations of her name to try and get her attention ("Ms. Klau-Klau Head!" "Ms. KooKoo! "Ms. KaKa!") while those around us chuckled (sort of...). They then met a girl about their age who, and I kid you not, quizzed them about their candidate of choice while they crawled all over the ground looking for fire ants. And the piece de resistance: when Mark and I turned around to find both boys chewing on the wooden fence next to us...we spent the next few minutes picking woodchips out from between their teeth during which one of the boys commented: "Mommy, only beavers eat wood, I don't know why I did that." Good call, kiddo...but I had to laugh. It was damn funny. It just was.

Keep in mind, my poor kids were doing the best they could to stay sane while they waited and we hadn't even gotten into the school yet! Meanwhile, I'm hearing my Blackberry ding with messages and wondering if I'm ever going to be able to a) do my civic duty before b) having to get my kids to school before c) being ridiculously late to work.

Thankfully, I eventually voted, and my troopers were at least a little happy about getting "I Voted" stickers. Granted, I had to bribe them with fruit snacks, stickers and juice boxes to get them into the car afterwards to get them to school, but hey, all in a day's work, right?

The funniest part, I think, is when my quieter son, Rhys, walked into school and proceeded to flatly tell his teacher that his mommy had just voted for the Obaminable Snowman, which really scared him in the Rudolph movie and that he didn't like him at all.

Gotta love kids.