Buh-Bye, Brownbacks

Sparrowblog says goodbye to Abby, Andy, Elizabeth, Jenna, and Mark as their Dad pulls out of the race. Peace be with you, Brownback offspring!

Where They Live Now: Brownback

Rolling Stone magazine describes the place the five Brownback kids call home:

Brownback's house in Topeka perches atop a hill, shielded from the road behind a great arc of driveway in a nameless suburb so new that the grass has yet to sprout on nearby lawns. On a recent Sunday, Brownback sits in the kitchen, looking relaxed in jeans and an orange sweatshirt that says HOODWINKED, the name of his oldest son's band.

The Senator seems to appreciate rock -- one of his buddies is Kerry Livgren, lead singer of the classic band Kansas, and he picked their oldie "Carry On My Wayward Son" as his MySpace theme song.

Sparrowblog location: Goodland, Kansas, on the high plains.

Campaigning Third-Graders

It's different if you're a teenager and pretty much don't mind -- or notice, even -- when your parents make themselves scarce. But what about if you're nine years old, like Mark and Jenna Brownback, Emma Claire Edwards, and Malia Obama? Jodi Kantor of the New York Times describes the stress and sacrifice these kids experience, and it doesn't sound like fun:

Mr. Brownback, Republican of Kansas, said he was feeling guilty recently about missing the first day of the school year for his two 9-year-olds, Mark and Jenna ...

On a recent Iowa trip, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards were busy with voters, interviews and phone calls, and the children spent good chunks of the day in the care of their baby sitter ... This fall, his parents say, (Jack) will be sorry to miss playing on his sports teams at home. Asked what she would miss, Emma Claire sounded alarmed. “How will I get to see my dog?” she asked...

Malia and Sasha see their father one day a week most of the time, twice if they are lucky. They recently resorted to catching glimpses of each other by Web cam ...

John and Jackie Kennedy had small children while campaigning, and he didn't catch flak for leaving them during the race, but times have changed. These days, good Moms and Dads are expected to be hands-on and around for the daily routine -- not just for the photo ops.

Does A Name Make The Girl?

My name (Sameera) fits me to a T, because it means "companion of the night" in Arabic. Did my birth mother know I'd turn out to be a blogging night owl? Or did she just think the name sounded pretty? I guess the orphanage could have changed my name, but somebody looked at my face and thought that "Sameera" seemed like a good fit. And somebody else did the same for you, and chose your name.

Here are Sparrow's Awards and Honorable Mentions for the names given to some of the candidates' daughters:

Best Fit For A First Daughter Wannabe On Nov. 4, 2008:
Abigail (Brownback) means "father in rejoicing" in Hebrew.

Works Great When Your Middle Name Is Joy:
Catharine (Edwards) means "pure" in Greek.

Really Shows What Her Father Wants To Do To President Bush:
Jacqueline (Kucinich) means "supplanter" in Hebrew and French.

Best Fit Right Now Since She Just Graduated From High School:
Caroline (Giuliani) comes from the word for "free man" in French and German.

Hardest To Live Up To:
Bridget (McCain) is "the exalted one" in Gaelic.

Most Poetic in 2 Languages:
Meghan (McCain) means "pearl" in Greek, and Meghana means "thunder" in Sanskrit.

Hardest To Fulfill Unless A Teacher Gets Mad While At The Board:
Chelsea (Clinton) means "chalk landing place" in Olde English.

Battle of the Grandmas

On June 8th, the First Twins' grandmother Barbara Bush celebrated her 82nd birthday. If you're wondering who might take over her job as First Granny, here are four possibilities:

Nancy Brownback, grandmother of Abby, Andy, Elizabeth, Jenna, and Mark, still farms 1400 acres in Parker, Kansas.

Dorothy Rodham, Chelsea's grandma, is also up for the job. She's extremely private, just like her granddaughter.

Catharine Wade "Bobbie" Edwards (Cate is her namesake) used to be a postal carrier. She's in the running, too.

Roberta McCain is 95 and still going strong.

Photo courtesy of Vidiot.

Jenna Brownback Can Spell

When she lived in Shantou City, China, Jenna Brownback used to be called Chenyi Dan. According to this interview, her birth mother carved a tiny oval on Chenyi's stomach with a pen knife so that they might be able to find each other again. Wow. That's intense but kind of cool. A scar you carry around forever to remind you of the woman who gave you life.

Chenyi was adopted when she was almost two by her parents, Sam and Mary — that's when she became Jenna Joy. Her other claim to fame, besides being a Senator's daughter, is that she won her third grade class spelling bee.

"Jenna" sounds kinda like "Chenyi," doesn't it? I'm glad my parents kept the name my birth mother gave me (since I don't have a scar), but that might be because "Sameera" is an easier name for Americans to pronounce than "Chenyi." Anyway, it doesn't matter what they named me because everybody and their uncle call me "Sparrow" now. Except the busty blonde barista who worked the morning shift at that café in Brussels -- she sang out "Latte für Sameera!" so perfectly that if you closed your eyes on the last word you'd think she was Pakistani, too.

All The Candidates' Kids

A full list of First Kid Hopefuls is drifting around in cyberspace; here it is at Yahoo! News. The youngest is Christina Dodd, age 2, the oldest is Doug McCain at 47, and there aren't any candidates with kids in sixth through ninth grades (ages 10-15).

Kids who need babysitters: Christina Dodd, 2, Grace Dodd, 5, Sasha Obama, 5, Malia Obama, 8, Jack Edwards, 9, Emma Claire Edwards, 9, Mark and Jenna Brownback, both 9.

The teenagers: Bridget McCain, 16, Elizabeth Brownback, 17, James McCain, 18, Caroline Giuliani, 18, Andy Brownback, 19, and Ashton Gilmore, 19.

In their 20s: Abby Brownback, 20, Andrew Giuliani, 21, Jack McCain, 21, Meghan McCain, 22, Jay Gilmore, 23, Sam Hunter, 24, Jackie Kucinich, 24, Sarah Huckabee, 24, Craig Romney, 25, Ashley Biden, 25, Cate Edwards, 25, Chelsea Clinton, 27, David Huckabee, 27, Ben Romney, 28.

MySpace Freedom of Speech Award Goes To ...

Before we get back to finding out where and how they live, here's an update on me and them in MySpace.

I tried to friend most of the candidates today and post something about this blog on their sites. John Edwards, Sam Brownback, and Mitt Romney added me and posted my comment after a while, but no HTML code allowed, so people can't click from their sites to this one.

Chris Dodd added me and posted my comment right away, without any long approval process. He also let me link right to this blog like an HTML maniac.

John McCain added me but didn't approve my comment. We'll wait and see what happens. No word at all from Obama, Giuliani, Biden, Clinton, or Richardson.

Results so far: Chris Dodd wins Sparrow's MySpace Award for Freedom of Speech! Sadly, once the Wackos start to post, he might have to change his ways ...

Washington Post Chimes In

So I'm not the only one keeping an eye on the spawn swimming in the campaign. Today, in The Reliable Source, Post columnists Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts give a great rundown on the First Kid hopefuls, providing these juicy tidbits:

Abby Brownback's a newspaper editor at Kansas State and her National Merit Scholar brother Andy's on the university's champion math team. Their sister Liz is still in high school in Topeka. The Brownback clan also includes Mark and Jenna, both 9, adopted from Guatemala and China.

Jay Gilmore graduated from University of Virginia two years ago, where his wrestler brother Ashton's a freshman.

Caroline Giuliani starred as Maria in her high school's production of "West Side Story."

The godmother of Jackie Kucinich (a twenty-something who parties with the authors of the Post article) is Shirley MacLaine of the New Age.