Barack Obama Is Coming to Our House?

The conversations started in October when our six year old son came home from school talking about the elections and how he was going to vote. He didn't have a full understanding of the whole presidential campaign thing, but he could tell us that Bush was currently president and we were going to get a new president. He repeated it several times a day for a few weeks, and was thrilled when we took him to the polls to vote. After the election he began telling us we had a new president and asked when Barack Obama would come.

"The new president starts his job in January," I always said.

"But that's a long time," he would reply, looking dejected.

I would explain that the new president had a lot of work to do before he could start his new job. We would look at the calendar together and count the days until January 20th, and every few days or so he would tell us how many more days until Barack Obama became our new president.

After he started back to school this month, he began talking about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and how that holiday was the day before Barack Obama was coming. As the big day approached he got more and more excited and got his four year old brother excited, too. I started fielding questions from both of them.

"When is Barack Obama coming?"

"Who is he?"

"Can I see him?"

"Can I talk to him?"

"Barack Obama is coming to our house?" (Not without sufficient notice. That would require some serious cleaning.)

Their excitement was inspiring for me, and even though I'm not a member of any political party and tend to keep my emotions in check regarding politics, I felt excited for them as they tried to wrap their minds around what this all meant. How do you explain abstract concepts like peaceful transition of power, having the right and responsibility to vote for our government officials, that the White House is the people's house, or what it means to be president of a country to one child who is firmly rooted in the literal and another who still struggles with getting his shoes on the right feet?

On Tuesday we all sat together on the couch and watched Obama and Biden take the oaths of office and listened to President Obama's inaugural address. It was not quiet at our house by any means, as one child complained about not having enough room and another couldn't keep his hands to himself, but we watched together and I hoped that all our previous discussions helped them to capture even the smallest glimmer of the importance of the moment.

Original DC Metro Moms Blog Post

Andrea is a political moderate and mother to three curious boys. When not buried under an avalanche of questions about any topic under the sun, she blogs about cooking at Andrea's Recipes and gives her opinion on home and garden products at Andrea's Reviews.