Vote

I am a very strong proponent of voting.  I encourage everyone I know to vote, even if I know they don't share the same political views as I do because I believe strongly that it is our civic duty to be involved with politics at every level.  It is precisely why, after taking my Munchkin to the doctor for a diagnosis of pink eye on Friday, poor baby, that I went and voted.  Elections like the one we are currently having, where you are only voting for constitutional amendments, generally have an extremely low voter turnout which makes it even more important to make your voice heard.  Every vote counts in any election but in ones like this, I believe your vote counts even more which is why I would like to encourage anyone who might read this to PLEASE, go vote on Tuesday, November 8th if you haven't already.  You can find out what the proposed amendments are here and you can find your local polling place here.

I also have a completely unrelated tip for everyone.  If you have a basement, and the bathroom where your young children take a bath happens to sit over a part of this basement, I recommend NOT placing your networking equipment underneath said bathroom. 
Friday night, Monkey and Monster were taking a bath when Munchkin starting crying.  I left the bathroom to go grab her and feed her and in the few minutes I was gone, my children somehow managed to splash so much water outside the tub that they essentially turned the floor into a mini lake.  While I tried to mop all the water up, I wasn't fast enough and some of it ran under the baseboard, into a closet and dripped down, directly on top of our router, modem and switch, effectively killing our entire network. 
My husband was understandably upset, given that it destroyed an 800 dollar piece of equipment and he had to go scrounging through spare parts to piecemeal our network back together.  Thank God I am married to a network technician who can take even a disaster like that and within 2 hours, have our entire house back up and running.

Leave a comment and tell me, what is the most expensive thing your child/ren have ever inadvertently destroyed?

Old Racist

                                            I'm not racist honey!

                               Is that a colored person on the television????



I have a conundrum.  I have recently discovered that my husband's sweet 99 year old Grandma is a racist.  I know it isn't that surprising given her age but it still comes as somewhat of a shock to me since in the 9 years I have known her, she has never once shown any racist tendencies.  Obviously, she was the whole time and now that she is suffering from age related dementia, her internal filter has been turned off and she says and does things which are questionable at best.
She can't be left alone anymore so my in-laws moved in with her and sometimes, when they need to run errands, I come and babysit Grandma for them.  It was on just such an occasion the other day when she saw an inter-racial couple on television and made the comment that she just doesn't agree with "colored men" marrying white women.  I was kind of blown back and didn't know what to say at first.  It was one of those moments when a million things run through your head in about .5 seconds, some of which were
1. I can't believe she just said that!
2. Do I say something or just let it go?
3. If my children were older I might be able to let it go and explain later but they aren't, they are 4 and 2 which means they are at an impressionable age where they are always watching adults around them.
4. If I try to say something, am I going to make the situation worse, arguing with a senile old woman?
5. If I say nothing, are my children going to get the impression that it is okay to not confront racism when they see it or worse, think it is acceptable to hold beliefs like that?

So I decided in those .5 seconds that I should say something so my children would see first hand that I am not complicit with Grandma's views and that there is a way to casually confront without arguing.  So my response was, "Oh yeah, why is that?"  At which point Grandma just kind of laughed and said she just didn't think it was right.  So I responded, "Well, times are different and there is nothing wrong with it.  People are just people, it doesn't matter what color your skin is."  At which point she laughed again, what I call the senile laugh.  A kind of condescending, bewildered laugh all rolled into one and then she drifted back into her own thoughts.
I have really struggled with that situation for the past several days.  Did I say the right thing?  Should I have said something more or said it differently?  What do I do if (when) something like it happens again?  How do I make sure that I set a good example for my children about confronting wrongs, minimize their exposure to negative ideas while at the same time not sheltering them because they will have to face it at some point? 

A big thank you to Ambro and FreeDigitalPhotos.net for the picture of the elderly woman.