Career Opportunities, Part 1

Everyone seems to agree that the election of Barack Obama has had historic implications. Perhaps none more earth-shaking than on my son's future career ambitions. Sammy, as those of you who know Sammy know, used to want to be an actor. Not just an actor, though. He's enough of a New York snob that he wanted to be a Broadway star--no frou frou Hollywood career for him. His plan for the past year or two has been: college at NYU, a job on a soap to get him kick started until his Broadway career takes off. No sweat, easy-peasy.

Well, leave it to the seismic shift of the 2008 election to change all that. Sam was, to put it mildly, OBSESSED with the election. And by November 4th, he had a new career goal. Not president; that's too much stress and pressure. But Senator. These days, Sam worries not about which soap he should audition for, but which state he should run for Senate from--should it be New York, which he loves loves loves? or Wisconsin, where he feels he'll have a better shot? But New York's a more liberal state... Hmm. It's a conundrum.

Still, the path to senator is not a lock, by any means (not like NYU => Days of Our Lives => Broadway or anything). So what's a 10-year-old boy who spends way too much time worrying about the future to do when planning his career path? Then, Barack started announcing his cabinet and it all became clear. The key? Rahm Emanuel.

Because before Rahm Emanuel was a semi-fascist representative from Illinois, he was, of course, a ballet dancer. And then it hit us: he's not the only famous ballet dancer/politico. I'm speaking, of course, about Ron Reagan Jr., former twinkletoes, current radio host on Air America.

So Sam's journey to Washington is now clear: He needs to change his name to something starting with an "R"-"Rodolfo"? "Romulus"? And he needs to become a professional ballet dancer. Although if you believe Ron Reagan, he can just flop around the stage at Sarah Lawrence and he's all good. Easy-peasy.

Now if only he knew ballet...

Hair Update

Molly has dancer's legs. They're sturdy and strong. She's got these ridiculous calves that are completely well-defined and strong. And she's got my feet. A gajillion years ago when I took ballet, the one good thing that anyone ever said to me about my dancing prowess was that I had dancer's feet. They're basically rectangular, so the big toe and the little toe are almost on the same plane. It makes for a nice, stable dancing base and it's the best for toe shoes. Pity those folks with long feet and big toes that are much higher than their little toes--toe shoes are a nightmare. Molly's got my feet. They're adorable and square and they'll make a great base for dancing. I think she'll start with ballet but she'll decide it's too fussy. My bet: in the end she'll go a bit more avant: more Twyla Tharp or Alvin Ailey or Hubbard Street.

Right now she's doing a line dance with the Teletubbies.

We have to file a one-year post placement report for Ethiopia. Hard to believe that we've had Molly for a whole year already. It's amazing how much happened. A year ago today we were on a plane heading for Paris, to spend four days before we went to Addis. Or maybe we were already in Paris, sleeping off jetlag.

So in the service of listing Molly's accomplishments for the Powers that Be in ET, I counted over 30 words that Molly will say independently: from "all done" and "eat" to "sheep." She says "juice" (j00-eece) and "cookie" and "yogurt" (yo-yo). And she pooped in the potty last week. Of course, since then she's had no interest in trying again. Instead, she plays with the fab new Elmo potty seat we got her and says "Elmo poop." Which I'm sure he does, although I've never thought about it before.

Here're a few new pictures of Molly. In the winter and spring, after a few days, her hair straightened out into kinda wispy soft flyaways. But now that it's summer in Wisconsin (read: 100 percent humidity) she's always got this head full of crazy curls. They're still not the tight little curls--they're big fat soft curls that corkscrew out all over her head.

Molly is "hiding."