SEEING WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE - PART 1

We took MEB and MTB to the Capital to witness some of the protests.  I was a little concerned about their safety considering what was being reported on Fox News.  As everyone knows their reporting is so fair and balanced (Just watch it for a while and they'll tell you this every five minutes).

It was Saturday morning (No we weren't skipping school.  GREEDY TEACHERS!) and protesters from the Tea Party were expected to rally that day.  We pushed the kids around the Capital in their stroller and reached the area where the Tea Party was congregating within an orange plastic fence.  MEB wondered what was going on and we told her this was the Tea Party.  She wondered where the balloons and cake and games were.  We told her that they wouldn't have any balloons and cake and the only game they'd probably play is pin the tail on the donkey.

MEB and MTB then froze, both starring at a women wearing a leopard patterned fur coat.  The coat defied all they'd seen in the numerous animal books we own.  Was it a leopard?  A bear?  A mink?  Perhaps a cross-breed (This is the Tea Party after all).  The woman wearing the coat noticed the kid's stares.  She smiled and waved at them which prompted MTB to change his stare to a surly grimace, point at her and yell "No!"  MEB told MTB it was okay then asked us what kind of animal the woman's coat was made of and where did it come from.  We didn't know what kind of animal it was but were pretty sure it came from Tennessee.

We moved on out of fear that MTB was going to raise a ruckus and be included in the less that one percent of people who protested in an uncivil manner.  This would most certainly earn him the lead story on the Sean Hannity Show.  Once Hannity learned that MTB was the son of two educators he'd do an entire show on it followed by Greta Van Sustern's objective reporting of the incident.  I could just hear the lead:  Violent protests continue to erupt throughout the Middle East threatening the stability of the region, but first, apparently teachers in Madison will stop at nothing to intimidate the great Americans from the Tea Party's peaceful  protest in Madison by inciting their two-year-old son to provoke violence.

We moved on with MTB's attention stolen by a man dressed in a cow suit caring a sign that read, "Scott Walker is udderly ridiculous."  Finally, an animal he recognized.  MTB pointed at it and said "Moo."  MEB quickly responded to her little brother by explaining to him that it wasn't a cow, it was a man.  MTB rubbed his face in confusion.

  

DARK INVADER

I was downstairs sitting on the couch watching the news as my wife was upstairs giving MEB and MTB a bath.  I was enjoying this brief moment of solitude  when I heard MEB scream, "Mommy, MTB pooped in the bath!"  My wife quickly removed the kids from the tub, leaving their bath toys stranded.  She called down to me with a chuckle, "It's happened again." 

MEB was upset at the realization that she was in the bath when the unwelcome visitor from the bowels of her brother arrived.  My wife assured her everything was fine and that Daddy had dealt with something like this before (I've been dealing with #$%&* my whole life). 

I quickly arrived in the bathroom and noticed the dark brown invader.  The most noticeable item left in the tub was a plastic figurine of Dora The Explorer unknowly floating toward the invader.  I worried she had mistaken it for Boots and would soon embrace what she thought was her bi-lingual primate friend.
"Vamanos!  Vamanos!"  I yelled, but Dora kept floating towards it with a smile on her face.  If I ever wished for Swiper The Fox it was now.  Of course, if Swiper happened to swip this I speculated he would frustratinly yell "Oh Man!" for different reasons than usual.  Fortunately, I was able to capture the invader (I won't go into detail on how) and rescued Dora and the other toys, quickly quarentining them in a small bucket filled with clean water and disinfectant. 

I'm the first to admit that I struggle with domestic choirs, but when I finished cleaning that bath tub you could've eaten off it.

Later that night I laid awake in bed.  I couldn't  help but think about Dora.  That innocent smile on her face and the trauma she would have suffered if she, in fact, had reached the dark invader.  Trauma such as that would surely lead her down the same destructive path as so many other child stars, eventually resulting in numerous stays in rehab centers and a couple stints in jail.  I felt proud that I was able to save her from such a fate and pray that as she enters her teenage years there will be others to save her from the dark invader.