Finding one's place...

Eleanor has found her place in the world. It's at the Hillary Clinton campaign headquarters where the 20-somethings who have been moving around the country for months to work on the campaign treat her with respect. They all look at her at say, literally say, that she is just like them when they were kids. They know her name now and welcome her back into the office.

Last night she got two jobs to do: put up yard signs in Clifton and canvass our neighborhood this weekend. The latter job she requested for the "Girls for Hillary" club that she organized. The Clinton office actually has a file on the computer now called "Eleanor Yardsigns." I had been ambivalent about the Hillary-Barack decision, but the power of Eleanor's passion is contagious. As a mother, seeing my daughter find a community and comfort is powerful. She has already talked about the crew's return in October. We have tried to point out the uncertainty of the outcome, but she doesn't have emotional room for that now.

When you watch the returns on Tuesday night, think of her.

The poll

Did you notice the poll on our blog? PLEASE!!!!!!!! take the poll. It will be fun, and I (Eleanor) will change it every other week.  Also you can comment to give me ideas.

news...

CORRECTION: Calvin didn't post this! Jen did!
We saw Spike Lee this evening. We actually didn't take a picture of him, but I thought it would be funny to act like we had another brush with fame. Actually, the kids really paid off again. We were sitting far in the back. Calvin wanted to go check things out up front while we waited for the talk to start. While up in the front, we were offered some of the unclaimed "reserved" seating. We sat in the third row, center. Cool! The talk was interesting, but mostly sounded like a commencement speech: follow your dreams, work hard, and don't get sucked into negative media representations of black people.



Here are some other things that have been going on...
Eleanor and I made a marble run out of Legos and a tube.

Eleanor started a club called, "Girls for Hillary." They made and posted this sign on Ludlow.



Calvin made a water balloon, froze it outside, and cut it open. The result was a frozen water egg. He kept saying, "It's as cold as ice!" and laughing.




Calvin read about a tasting experiment. We all had unsweetened chocolate, lemon juice, sugar, and salt.

Hillary!

How great is this?



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Both kids got their signs autographed. You can see it in Calvin's picture!

Joy!

During the extended Florida trip, the kids got to go to Disney. They had fun fun fun! They had three days away from their parents and were spoiled. Eleanor noted at some (paid) activities, "My mom would never do this." :-)

Super Tuesday!

Some children get excited about the circus. Some get crazy when they hear the ice cream man's music (though not in our neighborhood -- yikes!). Our Eleanor, on the other hand, got up this morning as if it were Christmas. To her, Super Tuesday is as good as it gets. She asked me on Sunday if she could stay up a little later tonight to watch some of the early returns. Of course I said yes, and I am really looking forward to sharing in her excitement.




You can see who she's endorsed. Without joining the chorus of people marveling (or disparaging if you're The Man) the diversity of the Democratic candidates (well, the final two anyway), I have to say that it's pretty cool that my daughter will never know a time when a woman could not be a legitimate candidate. As she likes to point out, however, there are currently something like 30 female heads of state worldwide right now, so let's not get too misty-eyed.

update on FL

Calvin ended up being sick. He's on antibiotics now, which is not so much a sign of how sick he is/was (since we tend to let nature take its course) as our desire for him to get better more quickly than he usually does. As we've long known, he takes a long time to get better. (A funny side story: The first urgent care that Matt took C to only accepts Medicare. Welcome to Naples!)

The end of my time in Florida was quiet. We all were lazy with Calvin, hanging around the condo reading, watching TV, doing impromptu projects, and doing some schoolwork. Matt and I each took E to the beach once. She loves to play in the sand. When I took her to the beach, she dug a very deep hole, designed to capture shells as the tide came in.

I'm home now, but their time in Florida continues.