President... Gift of Flight... President... hmmm

I was driving Amelia to Summer Camp at Friends. We were listening to NPR and heard an interview with Nancy Pelosi about how now that Hillary lost will there be a woman President anytime soon, blah blah. So I looked in the rearview mirror to get Amelia's attention and asked, "Do you want to grow up to be President." She answered with a long drawn out sigh, "Yeaahhh..."

"But what I really want are WIIINNGS! I want to be a fairy."

If I hadn't been at a stop light, I would have crashed into the closest solid object. It was the funniest timing. No way you'd ever see it that perfectly timed in the movie version.

You and the West Wing

Christmas of 2007 your mother got me the entire DVD set of The West Wing. I'm so addicted to that show. Even though the politics are rather liberal, I'm fascinated with life behind the scenes in the White House. Anyways, you watch this with me when I don’t let you watch another Curious George. You like Joshua and you call him that too, even though 90% of the times people say his name it’s just Josh. However when you play that game that kids like to do where you say, “I’m the mommy and you’re the puppy” or “I’m the princess and you’re the broom” or whatever, you always say, “I’m the President and you’re Joshua”. Guess you can tell it’s good to be in charge.

So it’s July of 2008 and I’m watch the first show of Season Six. NSF Thurmont is the name of the episode. That’s Naval Support Facility Thurmont, commonly known as Camp David. Leo and the President are arguing in the Oval Office and it gets very loud and very heated.


BARTLET
Killing Palestinians isn’t going to make us feel safer. They’ll kill more of us, we’ll kill more of them. It’s Russian roulette with a fully-loaded gun.

LEO
We can’t allow terrorists to murder our citizens without...

BARTLET
Why would they do it? Why would Palestinians murders American government officials? They never have before. They’re deliberately provoking us, Leo. They know that we have to retaliate. They’ve studied us. They want us to overreact.

LEO
This isn’t overreacting. It’s the appropriate, balanced...

BARTLET
Tell me how this ends, Leo! You want me to start something that may have serious repercussions on American foreign policy for decades, but you don’t know how it ends.

LEO
[shouting] We don’t always know how it ends! [calmer] The Lincoln will be in position in a few hours and then you are going to have to give the go ahead for the bombings.

BARTLET
Or what? [pause] Let me know when Chairman Farad calls. I’ll be in the Residence.

LEO
Thank you, Mr. President.

He leaves.

There’s a small pause where the cut to commercial would be. You were at the coffee table coloring and you said very calmly and very plainly “The President doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

I’m still floored just writing this. "A good idea" is a vastly difficult concept. There is no simple dialog in that exchange, nowhere does Bartlett say, well I just think it’s not a good idea – something you could have been repeating. It obvious that they are arguing, even a three year old could pick up the emotion – these are consummate actors. But it’s not that they are just mad, it’s a persuasion. Leo needs the President to pull the trigger, he’s urging so strongly that he yells – at the President – in the Oval Office. Bartlett's protests never use "I". I don't like, I don't think, whatever... he rebuffs Leo with questions, that's much more subtle of a rejection... although the tone was full of it.

This was truly an “old soul” moment. That part of you that's 400 years old spoke up and you listened.

A change of seasons, a change of clothes

I was looking to pack away some winter things. It was evening and you were in your Tinker Bell night gown - ready for a story. Mom and I pulled out a clothes bin from under our bed.

BTW, your mother found lots of clothes and shoes she'd been looking for all winter. That's just her.

Anyway, the other had some baby clothes... some really clean sneaker (since we didn't let you get dirty), some pretty coats. All things that I could see you wearing. And when I saw you, you were at the appropriate age... I guess that it really hit me that you were not going to get younger or stay young, or be someone I can pick up and carry to school or to bed.

I went to your room to ask you to stop growing up. I was crying. You're so good when you see your daddy cry. I said, "Don't you want to stay my baby forever?" You said, "Do you want me to ask God for that?" I said that he's just not going to let that happen but we'd have fun along the way. You had the book you wanted to read in your hands. It was a book for a much younger kid with big pictures and few words. You still like those kinds. And you started to pretend to read from it... "Sometimes you're sad, and sometime you cry and sometimes you're happy..." Like I said, you know just what to do when your Dad is crying.

I came in your room to straighten your covers. BTW, this is one of my favorite parts of being your father.
When you woke up, you said, "Daddy, I had a dream when I was on top of a mountain"


NTS: Make sure we get to some mountain cliff soon. Maybe the Narrows