It’s the first week of school for my kids and their teacher-writer-mom, so I’m sneaking in time to blog thankfulness for the following:
~It’s been a relatively smooth start to the school year. I love my new 7th graders, and my own kids have enjoyed their first few days.
~Tomorrow, I’ll start reading Cynthia Lord’s RULES with my students (yay!) to get ready for her author visit later this fall (double-yay!).
~In a little less than two months, I get to vote for a new President of the United States. I love voting — LOVE it with a capital L and with a passion I usually reserve for books and chocolate. Every time I pull that little lever, I feel the same surge of excitement that I felt when I voted for the first time after I turned eighteen.
-And on a related note, I’m part of an extended family with extremely diverse political views – from the extreme right to the extreme left. My husband and I have been known to cancel out one another’s votes. In 2000, I remember my mom asking my then-four-year-old son if he had gone to the voting booth on Election Day.
"Yep," he said proudly.
"Who did you vote with?" she asked him.
"Daddy and Mommy."
"And who did you vote for?"
"George Bush and Al Gore."
It made us laugh at the time, but now, it makes me feel thankful. The divergent views in our family have taught my kids that there’s always more than one side to an issue, that you ought to have information to back up your opinions, that people can disagree — sometimes fiercely — and then sit down to dinner together, and that everyone gets to make up his or her own mind at the end.
Let the conversations continue…