Last week, a friend mentioned she was about to place a call to her children’s school to inquire if they would be allowed to watch Tuesday’s presidential inauguration.

Good idea, I thought. I hung up with her and immediately phoned my son’s elementary school too.

The woman answering the phone said the decision would be left to each teacher, with the caveat that any television viewing would need to be accompanied by a related lesson plan.

No problem, said my son’s teacher, who asked me to help her figure out when exactly Barack Obama would be sworn in. School days are jam-packed; there’s no time to sit in front of the boob tube, staring at VIP’s arriving and inaugural parades parading. She wanted to flip the TV on for the historic changing of the guard, then flip it off again. Ten, 15 minutes max. These are, after all, kindergarteners.

It interested me that she speculated most classrooms in the school of 800 students would not be tuning in. Too much schoolwork to be done.
That’s a shame.
On Jan. 20, the most significant event going on in the United States will be unfolding in front of the U.S. Capitol. Regardless of your personal politics, there’s no denying it’s a historic moment.

There’s lots to be learned from seeing a black man take over the reins of this country. It calls to mind our nation’s past, not-so-sunny eras of slavery and inequitable civil rights. Even staunch Republicans can find inspiration in the moment, if not the man. If a black man can become President, so can future generations of African-American children or the pigtailed princess who is my daughter -- or yours.

Mine is already impressed with the gravitas of the office. I told both my older kids last week that soon, our country would have a new president. They were thoroughly confused. Didn’t we have elections two months ago?

I explained the difference between the election – the actual voting – and the inauguration, which is essentially one big party.

They could relate to that. My son recently celebrated his birthday, and my daughter’s party is upcoming. A mere five days after Obama whoops it up at a black-tie ball, my daughter will ring in her fourth birthday with a similarly elegant soiree inspired by Fancy Nancy.

“I think being President is very special,” my daughter, Shira, said.

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because President sounds like present,” she responded.

True that.

On the day I write this, I have to return Doreen Cronin’s “Duck for President” to the library. I’m a big public library user, so much so that most of the children’s librarians at the Cameron Village branch have known my kids by name since birth. I love books and I wanted my children to love books so I started reading to them when they were just a few weeks old, propping their wobbly bodies against my chest.

I always try to find books that correspond with events going on in the news or in our lives. So when we went to see The Nutcracker, I checked out a beautifully illustrated book based on the ballet beforehand. And ahead of the inauguration, I took home “Duck for President,” a wacky tale of an insouciant barnyard duck who decides to campaign for chief of the farm and usurp the farmer’s authority, then run for Governor, then President before deciding to return to the farm and be a plain old duck again.

It was the perfect way to convey the pageantry of campaigning and the electoral process to young kids. There was Duck, kissing babies in local diners, playing the saxophone on late-night television a la President Clinton and giving “speeches that only other ducks could understand.”

My kids and I read the book one last time before I had to return it, seated on the floor while waiting for my son’s bus. We spoke about elections and change, and how change can be good. For example, I said, wouldn’t you get sick of mac and cheese – his favorite – if we had it every night?

Why don’t we vote on dinner?, someone suggested.

I hastily drew a ballot on the back of an envelope.
Choose one: tofu and rice OR mac and cheese.

Remember, I admonished my son, change is good.

Mac and cheese won.

Starting this week, Bonnie appears on Saturdays on TriangleMom2Mom. She replaces Di, who moved to Wednesdays.