All the singing dolphins in the bathtub have names, and they change from time to time. Sometime before the mid-term elections, mid shampoo, one of the dolphins became George Bush. I almost fell into the tub with the girls and the singing dolphins. Where did they hear this? Why? And so I decided then that I would teach them other names, their senators, the mayor, political historical figures. We started with Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. And the dolphins got new names, and all was happy. Then Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, and she got a dolphin, as did Hillary, and Senator Kennedy (but that was because he wrote a wonderful children's book, My Senator and Me, which they love).
At Christmas Mary and Kate received dolls, their first dolls, from their grandparents. And the dolls got names; one day, as I was searching for a lost puzzle piece under the couch, I overheard Kate talking about Dick's shoes. I jumped up, most curious, and there she was, playing with her doll, Dick Durbin. And then Mary followed, as is her custom, naming her doll Barack Obama. The names stuck, the senators became full time residents and now having them here is as normal as living with Eleanor Roosevelt the beagle. I'm reminded of the uniqueness of their chosen names when grocery shopping; Mary and Kate wander the aisles discussing the likes and dislikes of their senators, "Dick Durbin loves avocados", or "Barack Obama does not really like black beans". Never dull, always fun, sometimes exhausting. That's Barack, or BO as he is sometimes known, on the left, Dick Durbin on the right.
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