Post DNC: Stoking the Fire With My Kids

Against my better judgment, when I arrived back home from Denver at midnight on Friday night, I woke my daughter up with kisses. Six, seven or eight, of the deep nuzzle in the face and neck variety. I knew I shouldn't wake her -- she's the one who at age seven still has trouble going to sleep every night -- but after my longest trip away from home ever, I just had to reconnect with her scent, her texture, her sweetness. Thankfully, after a brief conversation she nestled back into her pillow and within a few minutes fell asleep.

By the time I made it to the next door down the hallway, I had regained some sense. So when I climbed the ladder to my nine year old son's elevated bed, I went in for the strategic kiss of the non-waking kind. In his sleep his arm was outstretched toward the ladder, so I started there and then gave a quick peck on the forehead while murmuring "I love you baby." He stayed asleep.

Finally, I was home.

As busy as I am -- or should be -- with work, given my week's absence at the DNC, I am not going into the office this weekend. Instead I am reconnecting with the little people in my life. The ones who are the only two references on my motherhood resume. The ones whose start of school this week while I was in Denver left me bawling at the California delegation breakfast.

So yesterday was an intense baking session with my fourth grader, whose teacher had the great sense to read "The Case Against Homework" this summer, and the great wisdom to apply its principles to her classroom pedagogy. This means that instead of homework packets that ask them to do endless repetitions of what they did in school, the "homework" is going to be "work at home" meaning projects that bubble up from a child's own imagination and curiosity. For my son, it is an examination of 5 different sugar cookie recipes to determine by taste test which is the best. From combining the ingredients, to rolling the dough out between sheets of wax paper, to preheating the oven, cutting the cookies, and gingerly transferring them from spatula to cookie sheet, this was a race against time. The delicate dough started refrigerated but softened with each touch of a finger or roll of the rolling pin. It was a real triumph to get the 1/8" thin slices onto those cookie sheets, and then to get them safely into and out of the hot oven.

For my second grader, today was a trip to her hair and nail salon, where, draped in towels to soak up the water, I got all kinds of products massaged into my hair, followed by a facepainting design on my forehead ("Obama" -- her idea), followed by a manicure of alternating green and blue polish. I returned the favor by doing her nails and toes to complement the eyes and cheeks facepainting her daddy had already done for her.

I call this kind of interaction "stoking the fire." Connections that nurture the heart and the soul. That let them know there's no place else I'd rather be right then than in their world with them.

I couldn't have gone to Denver, of course, without a great support system already in place at home. My husband, one of his generation's greatest feminists, is already extremely involved in the kids' lives. As the one in the family who works part time, he is the one they can count on to be there for a performance or a game and he knows their routines better than I do. The other great factor in the equation is my mother, with whom we co-own our home and live a life of intertwinedness. So while I was in Denver, the family was just fine. The one who was missing, who missed out, who missed important things, was just me.

Of course, the Obama campaign hasn't ended now that I'm back, in fact it's stronger than ever. And the trick after a week of intense Obamaing is to re-integrate my volunteer work with the campaign into my home and work life. Both kids' teachers have asked me to come and talk about being a delegate at the convention. The second graders even prepared a list of questions in advance, including, "tell us about the music and fireworks," "how many people were outside on the last night," "were you visible on TV," and my favorite, "do you think Obama is good at math?"

They're old enough to know about Harriet Tubman, Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and that Obama's candidacy is the realization of millions of people's dreams over three centuries. They also know about Hillary Clinton, and the great significance of her candidacy. One day they will treasure the pictures I've taken of them in Obama garb, at Obama events, with Obama stuff.

For now, though, they'd rather see the pictures of the cookies, the facepaint, and the green ball.

Such is motherhood.