getting it right

I finally participated in one of those political polls/surveys over the phone tonight while getting dinner ready and frankly it was fascinating. I had kind of a hard time with it because I'm a moderate mostly and all the questions were either/or. I found myself saying things like "well, it's not the simple." Or "both of these answers are wrong." I would even start to explain myself and then realize the person I'm talking to is more or less a specialized telemarketer. They're just reading the questions on the screen in front of them. "Can I do a write-in answer?" I asked once. Most of the time the woman would just repeat the question when I said anything other than a one-word answer and I'd either say "fine, I'll just go with X" or -- a couple times -- "I guess I just can't answer this question." I know it's just a poll, and of course they have to keep it simple to make any kind of statistical sense, but I could not help feeling just a little . . . cheap. Is that weird? It's probably a personal problem.

After the straight political section they asked me a whole lot of questions about the role of religion in politics and I think I had an even harder time. One question was whether I think what makes a person religious is a) their faith and beliefs or b) how they live and what they do. I was floored that this was even a question. "Definitely both," I said. "In exactly equal proportions." She just sighed and repeated the question. "I'm sorry but that's the best I can do." If I wanted to get into it I could say that if you truly have faith you will live it, but this is a multiple choice test--no essay questions--and faith without works is dead.

So then after dinner my daughter and I went upstairs for bathtime and while I was filling the tub and looking away from her for a couple seconds she unrolled half a roll of toilet paper and was just so excited that I couldn't help but laugh. After the bath we hung out in the hallway and she stood and held onto the bars of the gate at the top of the stairs and shook it and looked at me, smiling. I started to laugh and she started to laugh and then we were both laughing harder and harder because it's contagious. And later we both sang in the car on the way home from a baby shower. Then last of all I carried her upstairs for bedtime and she clung to me with ferocious affection (she's starting to really *HUG* now) and I patted her back and leaned her head onto my shoulder and kissed her goodnight and laid her down and said I love you. Then I came into the office to write this, about how I love being a mom and how I'm really starting to get it right.