Birthdays and Chicken Day

Kisae's birthday is Friday. This is a long way off, in her almost-4-year-old view.

"My birthday taking too long," she has told me several times in the last few weeks. She said it again today. "My birthday taking too long!"

She doesn't quite have her birth date memorized but when someone asks her when her birthday is, she says, "day after Chicken Day."

She doesn't quite see the difference between a turkey and chicken, obviously. We keep telling her turkey but she keeps up the Chicken Day. Which makes us laugh. Which is probably why she keeps saying it.

Hang in there, honey. Chicken Day and your birthday are coming. Soon. Promise.

Busy with her book

I was cooking dinner when Chakisae found herself a book and settled into the most comfortable chair in the house. I stopped her "reading" to ask if she wanted me to help her put a CD in the player. She was happy for the music but a bit annoyed that she was kept from her literary pursuits.

"Now can I get back to my reading?" she said.

This was followed a few minutes later with, "Can you tell Dad I busy and I reading, and he can't talk to me?"

Quite a display of concentration for someone who can't actually read. But not out of character for a kid who sometimes takes along a tattered copy of Harry Potter when I suggest she grab a book (I think she figures if Ben reads it, she can, too).

It did make me smile to watch be so focused on the pages -- even if she had no idea what they said.

Some views on race and the election (from the younger set)

Ben's elementary school (like schools' across Fl. and the country) took part in a mock presidential election today. They also voted for a new state bird (out with the mocking bird, it seems). He voted for Brown Pelican. For bird, not president.

He said it seemed the school was split fairly evenly between Obama and McCain supporters, though he noticed clear differences based on skin color.

The white students, he said, seemed divided between the two candidates, with perhaps more of them leaning toward McCain. The black students were overwhelmingly (and enthusiastically) for Obama.

And how did my little self-proclaimed exit poller know this? Well he just asked lots of people, he said.

Hearing this discussion, Chakisae chimed in that she looked like Barack Obama. "Him the same color."

I'm still amazed that my black, African-born child will soon say of the President of the U.S.A.: "Him look like me."

I a winner

I voted on Friday (early voting here in Florida). On Saturday, Chakisae discovered the "I voted" sticker I'd gotten. She smacked it on her forehead -- and declined all requests to remove it.

She wore it to a birthday party, proudly. Of course, all my efforts to take it off, to say, you don't need to wear it, were rebuffed. "I have to, Mommy. I a winner. I present (president)." Oh.

So she wore it all day Saturday. At bedtime, Jim made her take it off, figuring the cheap adhesive might start to irritate her skin. So she went to bed holding the "I voted" sticker.

On Sunday morning when I woke up, Chakisae was sitting on the couch. She pulled up her pajama top to show me that she had slapped the "I voted" sticker on her chest. "I a winner," she said.

She wore it all day Sunday. Finally, at bath time, I said it had to go. It disintegrated when I took it off and that distressed her a bit but by then it seemed to have lost most of its allure. Once she was happily playing in the water, I tossed it in the trash, and she hasn't asked for it since.

Jim will vote tomorrow. I'm telling him to keep this sticker to himself.

The Halloween photos

Chakisae had a two-costume Halloween. She was a dinosaur for her school Halloween parade and Batman for trick-or-treating. Both costumes came from Ben's collection, so we were fine with the dual outfits. More importantly, she was thrilled with both her looks (you'll have to ignore her fake-serious look in the photos). Have I mentioned she is not a girlie girl?

Ben was a gangster. So were four of his friends. They were quite the cute gang (though don't tell them that. Nine-year-old boys don't want to be cute). And that is a fake cigarette -- and a fake gun (hence the bright orange). I started out as the parent who banned gun toys. Somewhere along the way, I guess I kind of gave up that fight.