I watched the presidential debate on Sunday night while simultaneously constructing “motivation badges” for my daughter’s Kindergarten class.

As instructed by her teacher, I was charged with carefully creating, in the shape of ghosts for Halloween, little paper badges that read “Bucket Filler”.  The focus in her classroom is to remind the children to fill UP each other’s figurative buckets (to not be a bucket “dipper”) and in so doing, fill up their own emotional bucket.  The badges are a reward when the children are recognized for being kind, thoughtful, and supportive.

Let’s just say a Sunday night argument between grownups vying to run the free world and a project centered on instilling kindness as a way of being were difficult to marry.

Instead of constructing perfectly shaped ghosts with festive glitter and funny “boo” faces, I woke up to soggy parchment where the glitter ran off and the words “Bucket Filler” smeared across their ghost bodies like a second thought.  The whole thing looked like a PB&J that was carelessly smashed between an oversized thermos and a carton of warm milk.

So today I begin again.

I’m starting from scratch.  I’ll sit on the sun-drenched porch and let the fall air fill my senses.  I’ll think about 6 year olds who love sparkles and rewards and holidays; bright and cozy classrooms across America teaching life skills to budding leaders – a president is in there somewhere; and confidence in the power of unfiltered love.  I’ll do it again, from the beginning because, sometimes, you just need a do-over to set things straight again.