Can we watch CNN?

I'm thinking about my eleven year old, a boy with ADHD, a boy with impulse control issues a boy who was prohibited, a few years ago, from watching the tigger movie, because he would destroy the house and everyone's serenity. My eleven year old, who's first grade teacher described him as being one of two boys in the class who would at random jump up, run across the room and start bouncing on and off the bean bag, thereby distracting the whole class.

This boy, my smart, rambunctious and often very challenging child, now asks if we can watch CNN. When this first happened, I looked at him in a bemused manner and asked, "who are you and what did you do with my step-son?" He laughed and explained that he now enjoys watching CNN, for a variety of reasons one of which being that he really likes Anderson Cooper's hair! To my dismay, CNN's Anderson Cooper has now displaced even Michael Phelps in my son's world of important people.

What was even more amusing to me, however, was when my son saw Sarah Palin explaining how she gained foreign policy experience doing trade missions to Russia and keeping an eye on Putin while he's in our air space. We asked if he thought she seemed like a qualified person to be Vice President and he looked at us as if we were crazy stating, "NO! Her answers sounded like something I would come up with if I were being interviewed!"

Yes, my son, who can be incredibly difficult, can also be surprisingly sweet. I do wish that he'd stop picking on his eight year old brother, however, I have to say for the record that I think he is incredibly smart and I am very proud of him. I am proud that he wants to be a safe school ambassedor, I'm proud that he is great with little kids, I'm proud that he does well in school and I'm proud that he convinced me to volunteer for the Obama campaign. He was so enthusiastic, that I relented and took him and his brother to do the thing that is near the very bottom of my list of things to do...walk around, knocking on people's doors and asking them to vote for Obama.

All I can say is...Rowan for President 2040!