The first time I ever canvassed door-to-door for a political candidate was in 1976, when I knocked on every door of every little brick row home on our block stumping for my candidate.

Tonight I rediscovered an old elementary school project, for which I’d written the following:

Go Ford

Well, it’s election day and I’m rooting for someone. Guess who??? Gerald R. Ford. He may have lost the election, but I still thought he was the best president of my time yet. Jimmy Carter won this year–that was an upset–in more than one way.

Apparently I was blogger ahead of his time.

As part of his orientation for first grade, our son received a handwritten letter from a boy at his new school:

Dear Friend,

I’m glad that you are here at _ _ E! I will see you next year. Our gym teacher is nice. Art class is fun. We get to take books from the library. Music is fun. And we get to keep books from the book fair. And it is fun at _ _ E.

Your friend,
Steven

We have a bathroom.

Continuing with the theme of math concepts, kindergarten style. We had a hilarious conversation this evening. As you’ll see, I really walked into this one:

Dad: Remember when we were at the garden store and we were picking up those big bags of dirt? How many bags of dirt do you think you weigh?
Lad: I don’t know.
Dad: You weigh a little more than one bag of dirt.
Lad: Like one and a half?
Dad: Not quite, but close. So if you weigh a little more than one bag of dirt, how many bags of dirt does daddy weigh?
Lad: Two and a half bags.
Dad: That’s nice, but it’s more than that.
Lad: Four and a half bags?
Dad: That’s closer. It’s actually over six bags.
Lad: Yeah, painfully close to seven.

In honor of Potomac primary night, I recite this passage from the P.D. Eastman children’s classic, Go, Dog. Go!

A big dog party!
Big dogs, little dogs,
red dogs, blue dogs,
yellow dogs, green dogs,
black dogs, and white dogs
are all at a dog party!
What a dog party!

Go, Democrats. Go!

We celebrated the new year by taking the lad to the movies with a bunch of his friends. We saw Enchanted. For my part, I’m grateful both that we weren’t going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, and that the movie was sufficiently ironic about its genre. (I’m not a fan of the typical Disney animated features. Pixar, yes.)

The kids were thoroughly engrossed, though. Our son’s good friend could not contain his urge to dance along as the cast frolicked in Central Park. And in the climactic scene– [spoiler alert… the rest will be after the break] More »

Most of the time I feel like a natural at fatherhood. But there are those moments when I hear myself talking and I have an out-of-body sensation. Could that voice saying these words really be me?

Example from dinner tonight: “No matter good you think it’s going to taste, I do not want to see you licking the table.”

This morning the lad expressed the extent of his gratitude.

I am thankful for everything in my life. Everything in my life except for photography. Too much click-click, flashing in my eyes.