We are sad to see Romney not win.
I am not very political.
But this year my parents were REALLY active...
which then made Adleigh excited...
so I got wayyyy into the election as well.
Our city has been voted as the number 1 place to live in the U.S. TWICE... during this election I am not sure what the heck happened to the people living it. 2 guys were caught stealing Romney signs, 2 cars were vandalized with Romney stickers AND my parents Romney sign was destroyed and thrown in the street (they live in a very nice neighborhood). I don't understand why people can't respect others - and let people have different opinions.
We had a Romney sign in our yard since July. A REALLY nice sign that our neighbor gave to us. At first I wasn't too thrilled to have it in my yard...my mom sort of pushed it on us. Mostly I was afraid that our house would get egged or something. Eventually I was okay with it and started to like how it stood for what our family believes in. A couple of weeks ago I was driving home and saw a little girl walking her dog in the rain holding a big sign above her head - I got excited when I realized that it was a Romney sign. I hadn't seen another one in our neighborhood. As I got closer to my house I realized that OUR sign was gone. I was SO upset!! I called Jed, he yelled at me for just going home - I do NOT handle confrontation very well - and he told me to get back in the car to find her to get our sign back. As I rounded our cross street that is a 1/2 circle (going the opposite direction of the girl hoping to meet up with her) I saw her walk into her house with her dog (no sign in hand) while her garage door shut. Zeke immediately told me that it was our school friends house.
We had just met this family a couple months ago at the park across from our house. I never really noticed which house they lived in. Their daughter liked to play at our house and the mother volunteered to take Zeke's to early morning choir practice once a week. Other than that we haven't really gotten to know you each. When I told Jed who it was and what house it was - he was fuming - told me he was going to go over there before he left for work (that's right...in his uniform) and let them know that we want our sign back...AND
it is against the law to go on someone's property to steal. It is a criminal offense.
He literally wanted to let this 8-year old girl know that she could get in big trouble and it is illegal. This family still doesn't know that Jed is a cop. I talked him out of it and promised that I would text the mom. Which I did right away. 4 HOURS later I get a ridiculous response that her daughter found it "blowing in the wind," and that a different neighbor made her give them our sign ??? Um...Okay. First of all, the wind wasn't blowing - it was light raining - second, it was hooked to a mental rod that was at least 18" into the ground (no wind strong enough around here could have blown the mental pole OUT of the ground!
I still cannot believe that a neighbor...could have been a new friend...would do this. It is rude. It is mean. I felt violated. I felt like my freedom to express myself was taken away by this family. Looking back I wish that I had let Jed go over there DRESSED UP and scared the family. Had I known they were going to be dishonest and absolutely revolting to allow (or tell) their daughter to steal from a neighbors yard I definitely would have let him go over "guns-a-blazin'" (not literally of course). But within a couple of hours I had TWO signs back in my yard...and added 2 more signs to a couple of my neighbors that asked for one. I then realized that there was 6 houses on their street with Romney signs put up around that day as well...so they might have taken down ONE sign BUT ended up with MANY more :-)
Adleigh was probably just as upset about the sign as I was. She was so mad that someone stole
my Romney Ryan sign.
Since that day every time we were driving - mostly to school - so 4 trips a day...she would point out each and every Romney sign, shake her head and tell me how horrible it is that girl "stole my sign." Then she realized that Obama signs meant that they weren't for Romney...so she started pointing out Romney signs and booing every time she saw a Obama sign. Of course I let her know that we respect others opinions and it is alright that some houses have Obama signs - one thing that is GREAT about this country - Freedom of Speech.
On Halloween night while Trick-or-Treating when we went to a house that had an Obama sign she would come find me - pout her lips - with her whiny, sad voice would say:
Ohhhhhhh noooooo, they are voting for O-bama...
Again, I let her know that every one has their own opinion and we respect that. I just thought it was super funny that she was getting THIS involved in the election. She is only 4 years old! She was so excited to have a fake vote at her school - little did we know that they didn't involve the preschool class this vote - but she asked each of her siblings who they were going to vote for every morning...before they could even tell her she would say:
I am voting for Romney. I love Romney, he is such a nice guy. It makes me SO mad that our sign was stolen.
The day of the election she asked all day long who won. She was making the day hard for me because I was dying to know as well. At one point in the day she came up to me and said: Did you know that Romney isn't his name? Confused I asked her what his real name was. She began laughing and yelled:
Mitt! It is MITT Romney. Hahaha Those sign are all wrong. it is not Romney Ryan.
I guess she had just figured out his first name. I was scared to death to tell her Wednesday morning that Romney didn't win. She was so sad but has moved on to other topics rather quickly :-)
Signs stolen, my parent's yard vandalized and cars getting keyed...then OUR sign stole. Is this because we live in a swing state? Who knows. I am just glad that my kids got to learn a lesson this election season. They learned that every one is entitled to their own opinion. We respect our differences. We are friends with every one no matter what they believe. Most importantly is accepting that everyone has an opinion. We don't push our opinions on people and we want to be respected the same way. I have friends on both "sides" and I like that we can all be friends and have different beliefs. That is what makes this country so special...freedom of speech AND freedom to express your views.
My parents wanted us to take our Romney signs down Tuesday evening on election day BUT I couldn't. I still wanted the world to know that I stand for what I believe - even though he didn't win - I am not ashamed for who I voted for and stood behind him until the end.
4 days after the election we left our house early for the rec center and I saw that someone had vandalized our signs...really! It PISSED me off this time. I immediately got out of the car pulled off the stickers - fixed our signs - and proudly left them in the ground. Jed took them down later that day afraid that something else would happen to our house. I wish our neighborhood could be more respectful and classy...
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