"Mom-ing the Vote" with Matthew

It's been an interesting week, so far. In response to an invitation to my local election candidates I have heard from the "Big Four": Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green Party candidates.

Initially, I heard from only the Green Party candidate, after the letter was published in the Belleville Intelligencer last weekend. Having heard nothing from the others by Monday evening, I blogged my disappointment, hired a sitter and headed down to an All-Candidates debate here in the city. The next day, I wrote them all again, expressing regret and frustration that I'd not heard from the last three.

On Tuesday, my phone started ringing and by Friday, I was delighted to have spoken to everyone.

By week's end, I hope to have met all of them face-to-face or had more than a quick, "Yes, I got your letter," phone call with each one. By Friday, I hope to have made a voting decision and will blog it all here.

In the meanwhile, this is an almost verbatim conversation I had this morning with Matthew, aged 5:

"Mummy, do you have a special meeting again today?
"No. I will meet with a man on Wednesday morning though."
"The man who was here yesterday?"
"Mr. McMahon? No. A different man."
"Does he want to be the boss of Canada, too?"
"No. Like Mr. McMahon, he works for another man who wants to be the boss."

Pause for cereal-munching and thought-formulating.

"Mummy, Mr. Miciman was nice."
"Yes, he was."
"Did you like him?"
"Yes, I did."
"His voice sounded like music, didn't it?"
"Yes, it did." (It did!)

More cereal-munching and then:

"How come you're talking to these mans, Mummy? Why do you have special meetings with them?"
"Well, I wrote them a letter and asked them to talk to me about stuff."
"You wrote them a letter? And they said ok?"
"Well, I wrote them a few letters, actually. And I kind of bugged them."
"Did you nag them?"

Pause for me to snort with laughter. From the mouths of babes...

"Yeah. I nagged them."

"So,  why don't you want to be the boss of Canada?"
"Because my job is to raise you and Luke."
"Are you the boss of us?"
"I guess I am."
"And Daddy. Daddy's the boss when you're not here, right?"
"Yep. Daddy's the boss when I'm not here."
"But it's mostly you, right?"
"Yep."