My Mommy Voted for Obama

Little Bug is exploding with language. It's so fun to listen to him explore using words to share his thoughts. As his mama, I think I, better than anyone else in the world, can speak Little Bugese. Many of his words are the same grouping of sounds with just slight differences. We often run into situations where Little Bug tries talk to someone less familiar with his words and I need to act as a translator.

This weekend, I was tempted to just let people go it alone, just for giggles.

Little Bug's newest word is "grandma." He started mimicking it on Friday afternoon with a garbled "abamama," but soon found his groove and settled into a very defined version:

"Obama."

I can honestly see how "grandma" sounds like "obama" to a little child. It's definitely not as big of a stretch as "uhduh" is for "balloon" or "uhzuh" is for "raggie." To us, it was just a really great (and cute) execution of a long word.

To the people at the botanical gardens and the store who watched my son scream "OBAMA" with joy and wail "OBAMA" with sadness (depending on the situation and the crazy mood swings of a 2 year old), it was probably a little surprising to see this small child so passionate about our president.

Don't get me wrong, I'll go on record saying I was *this close* to buying a "Babies for Obama" shirt for Little Bug during the election. He actually owned and wore a shirt to his first voting experience with a donkey on it. A while ago, when I thought it was cute and funny to use kids as billboards for their parents, I would have been all over teaching him to chant "Obama" and busting it out as a party trick.

But I wised up over the last 2 years and realized it doesn't do Little Bug any good to be the vehicle for his mama's causes. He's got about 14-16 years before he needs to start thinking politics.

Anyway....

When people were doing double takes and giving us stink eyes or winks and nods as Little Bug chanted "obama, obama, obama" over and over, I didn't feel amused as much as I felt a little weird. (One woman gave me a scathing look and harrumphed her kids away from Little Bug...) Even though he wasn't actually saying anything political, I felt this urge to scream out

"I'm not stealing my kid's childhood by forcing him to be a political puppet!"

Because the truth is, I'd probably judge someone else a tiny bit, too, no matter how cute it was.

On the other hand, I'm so stoked that Little Bug conquered another word. He's perfected his version of it and has started pairing it with other words to make simple sentences. He's got another word to add to his growing arsenal. To me, it's cute and awesome and worth every ounce of pride I have.

Yes. He. Can.