Inauguration Day

This is such an amazing day for my little boy, and he doesn't even know it.

I am so proud of our nation, and so encouraged by the hopefulness I am witnessing from so many Americans. Barack Obama represents positive change for us as a people, and for me as a mother.

JR and I are as white as they come. Both of us blue-eyed and both blondies as children. Today, our hair has headed the brown (with a touch of grey, cough cough) route but we both burn when exposed to the sun for more than 10 minutes and need sunglasses even when it's cloudy.

Not so, our little boy. Grasshopper has rich, deep black "Johnny Depp eyes" that make me melt. Thick, straight, luxurious black hair that has to be cut every 5 weeks. And gorgeous caramel skin that toasts in the sun.

He is more American than we are.

He was born to a birthmother who is a registered tribe member within the Sioux Nation and that makes him a minority. That makes him someone whose ancestors lived here, loved here and died here without any representation in our government. Someone who can look at the portraits of our past presidents and see no one who looks even remotely like him.

Obviously, Barack Obama doesn't look like my little boy either, but more importantly, he doesn't look like ME.

When I tell my darling son that he can do anything, be anything that he sets his mind to, well now I have photographic evidence to back me up. I have pictures of a man who became President of the United States without looking like any of the men who came before him.

When I tell him that the color of someone's skin doesn't matter in this nation, he will believe me.

Even if I didn't agree with Mr. Obama's politics (which I do) I would be grateful to him for this day, for making history, for being the first president my son will recognize, and the first to bring me hope as a mother, and as an American in a very long time.