Election Day

Ding Ding clearly favors Barack Obama. She says he "looks good". I am trying my hardest to explain that both candidates are good people and they just have different plans for our country. I want her to know that it is okay to vote for whoever you want. So I show her a friend's MySpace page that has our friend at a Sarah Palin rally. I told her "look here's our friend at a Palin rally because" "SHE'S CRAZY!" Ding Ding interrupts. This might be a losing battle.

I begged her not to argue with her friends at school. Apparently there was an argument at school about whether or not Jesus died on the cross. I have repeated several times that we generally don't discuss politics or religion at school. She knows her school does not have a religious affiliation like pre-school did and she should keep her flippin mouth shut.

This morning I woke up Nick and Ding Ding at 5:30am to hit the polls soon after they opened at 6. Ding Ding was excited but had to race to the computer to cast her vote first on BuildaBearville.com for Bearemy.

We made it to the fire hall and I made a comment about how it was different from Ohio because the polling location was not divided by precinct. It ended up being secretly divided without any signs, because we ended up standing in 3 different lines until we found our names in the book. The poll workers here in New York are just as incompetent and grumpy as they are in Ohio! We finally got in the old fashioned voting booth with the big lever and curtain, Ding Ding and I voted first things went fine. Then Nick and Ding Ding went in and Ding Ding was very vocal in her opinions about Barack Obama. Despite their space aged appearance, those voting booths are not soundproof and Nick was embarrassed.

Halloween

This is Ding Ding doing her "drills" before Trick-Or-Treating.

Halloween was pretty uneventful. Ding Ding only passed on 3 "scary" houses and did not freak out about any costumes. We now know that Ding Ding is not a total nerd at school yet she actually has friends. She got to trick-or-treat with our neighbors down the block for awhile, after they gave up she found a little boy in her class and they finished off the street together. After he went home we found a little girl from her class. That was neat because that girl is waaaay taller than Ding Ding. She also found 2 or 3 other kids from her class to get all excited to see (like she didn't just see them 5 hours ago).

Here are the pictures. Ding Ding posing in her Bills Costume with the Ohio State Pumpkin and then her trick or treating pumpkin.

Here is the candy we collected. No overabundance of yuck candy and we got a full-sized M&M's, Crunch Bar and Twix.

Another tooth bites the dust!

Ding Ding came home from school with yet another hole in her mouth. That is 3 since school started. Unfortunately, the tooth is nowhere to be found. I hope the tooth fairy accepts empty envelopes. Lucky for her, the Tooth Fairy got home from the mall less than an hour ago with a super dee dooper prize in anticipation of this upcoming loss. Now Ding Ding is down to only one loose tooth.

This is what you write on the envelope if the tooth is M.I.A.

The Ha-Ha Powder

My spawn brings home a book baggie weekly with some short books that we are supposed to read over and over and over until it's time to return them on Friday. We read them once and read other books until Friday. These books aren't all that bad. They were written about 20 years ago and sometimes are a bit strange. One of the first books she brought home was Mama's Diet. It was about how mom was too heavy and was trying to lose weight. Also in that same bag of books was a book about a birthday present. Someone gave the advice NOT to give chocolate as a gift because it was too fattening.

I generally don't discuss weight/fat/heavy at home and use politically correct words like healthy/unhealthy. That is one thing that I think is pretty important to instill in my child. She will not make fun of overweight children. I don't remember being picked on in school, but I felt bad for the kids who were bigger than me. Sorry, that was completely off the topic. I will put that in italics.

Back to the point! Ding Ding brought home a book called The Ha-Ha Powder. It has a clown on the front. I'm not one to poo poo clowns without a second thought. I mean, some clowns might actually be funny instead of scary. I generally consider clowns as a creepy group of people with a few funny, lovable exceptions. But this book definitely falls into the creepy category. Especially the back of the book. Not cute, not lovable, very molester, very murderer.

Without reading the book, (Judging the Book By it's Cover) I am making some assumptions:

1. This book will give Ding Ding nightmares.
2. This book is a gateway to cocaine.
3. This book can be attributed to at least 90% of the drop-out rate.
4. The clown must have overindulged in the ha-ha powder by the look on his face on the back of the book.
5. I might try to steal this book from the Kindergarten.

Donkeys and Elephants

My daughter is on the edge of her seat because there are only 8 days until the election. This might be almost as exciting as football. She can name the Presidential Candidates and their running mates. She likes to see the percentages from the polls and holler about who is winning. I have tried to explain the differences between Republicans and Democrats. I have tried to explain the "tax the rich and spread the wealth" concept of Barack Obama. I have tried to explain why the Republicans don't like higher taxes without making them sound incapable of sharing.

So she wants to know why is Barack Obama a Donkey and why is John McCain an Elephant? I explained (more explaining. . . ) that a Donkey is a symbol of the Democratic Party and the Elephant is a symbol of the Republican Party. Kind-of like mascots.

She then rationalized that Elephants must be richer than Donkeys.

Pumpkin Carving

I forgot a pill this morning which contributed to our annual pumpkin carving being a very stressful event. I was nauseated and had a headache. Ding Ding wanted to carve her pumpkin into a NCAA logo. Can I carve a Ball State Cardinal? NO. Can I carve an Iowa Hawkeye? NO. I wanted to strangle her. I had to send her to her room for awhile to cool down after her long list of requests/denials.

After a break, we settled on a big letter O for Ohio State University. She also wanted a buckeye leaf and also a buckeye. This seemed easy until I drew the O on the pumpkin and it would end up being a gaping hole instead of a block letter O. Nick and I decided to improvise and carve half the O and then the other half leaving the inside of the O intact.
The above is what we ended up with. Ding Ding did not like the little lines on the side of the O which held the inside of the O intact. She decided that we needed to take the marker and draw an X on it then proceed to drawing a good O on the other side. We told her NO and she threw a mini fit. She decided that playing with her dollhouse would be more fun.

Nick and I managed to draw and carve the leaf and the buckeye.


They look like crap, but nobody really likes our neighborhood for trick or treating anyway. One block away is a neighborhood where the houses are big and so are the candy bars that they hand out.

I hope the pumpkin seeds turn out better once they are toasted.
I'm glad that's over and Ding Ding is slowly warming up to her Ohio State Pumpkin. She should love it by Friday.

Spoiled Little Ding Ding

Okay, I have no idea how NOT to spoil my daughter. I try! We went to the mall to pick up one specific item. We said NO NO NO to the daughter and we got only what we went for. She barely ate her lunch and we denied request after request for food until dinner (she was warned when she skipped lunch).

Buuuuut I located a doll house for sale. It is the Fisher Price Sweet Sounds Dollhouse. I asked Ding Ding if she would like a doll house and she said "yes!". It came with several sets of furnitre:

Bathroom
Laundry Room
Parents Bedroom
Living Room
Nursery
Family Room
Picnic Hike
Boating Fun
Campsite
Dining Room

It also came with evidence that there other sets, but many pieces have been misplaced (less for ding ding to lose). What a deal. A dollhouse and all the furniture she needs without having to set foot in Toys R Us. So much for not spoiling her. I don't think I would have been so guilty about this darn house if it weren't so huge. I swear it looks much smaller in photos, but it is humongous.

In other news, I installed my very own programmable thermostat. I doubt the real estate company we rent from would appreciate the fact that I removed the brand new one they installed last year, but it was one of those classic round ones that I had to set back every night before bed.
My dad assured me installing a new thermostat would be easy and it was. So now I am the proud owner/operator of a Honeywell RTH230B. It is a beauty. It looks like this one.

I truly was easy to install. You take off the old one and since we only have heat, there were two wires to connect. Red and White. I connected the red and white wires, attached the thermostat to the wall and waited for the device to start working. It was a stressful few minutes when I set it at 85 degrees just to make sure it worked. I had already started searching the Honeywell website for troubleshooting help. What could go wrong? Connect 2 wires and flip the switch on in the electrical box! It finally started working and nothing went wrong. It still hasn't turned on since then, but I guess we have no need for heat yet. Somebody claimed we are in for some snow this week and maybe we can test out the heat again this week.