Inauguration Day

I am a history and politics junkie. Well I used to be before I had kids. I have watched every Inauguration since I started voting, even when my candidate did not win. There is something in the peaceful transition of power and the majesty of the events that I love. Similarly I also watch the Emmys and the Oscars every year even when I have not seen the nominated movies. I was supposed to be at our church's moms group this morning and had planned to go and watch the Inauguration on DVR but I just could not pull myself away from the television. I really wanted to watch the events live and more importantly I wanted to watch the swearing in of our new president with my three boys. They may never know the significance of today but today will change the world in which they grow up and become men. 

Today Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It was amazing to watch him become the first African American President. I felt the significance of the moment, ever grateful that my boys will grow up with hopefully less racial divide than I. And thankful for the example he is to the young African American men of our country. As a mother I know how much this means to their mothers. He is also the first of my generation to be elected president which means I am either getting old or he is very young. Let's go with he is young. (This year I actually became old enough by Constitutional Standards to be President which was a weird thought I actually had on my birthday.) 

So today I made my boys sit on the couch with me and watch Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office. They don't know it yet but they have seen history. I tried to watch the speech with the boys but that I think may be asking a bit much from a 2, 4, and 6 year old. So I let them run free and I sat and listened to the President talk about a new era of responsibility. 

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

And I am full of hope for our country and for the world. Optimism feels good.