Obamarama

On the new president's first full day of work -- and work it will be, given the tough spot our country's in right now -- I'm thinking about all the big events that were happening to me around the time of the last inauguration in 2005.

I wasn't married then (but engaged and planning a wedding) and didn't have a child. I had recently started a new job and was given more responsibility there. And I was thisclose to hitting that major milestone -- the big 3-0.

Since then, a lot has happened.

Although C doesn't know it, she's in a new era. She doesn't know about racism, and by the time she's old enough to answer "Obama" when someone asks her who the president is, she won't know that we ever had a president who wasn't African-American. Truthfully, it probably won't occur to her even then.

When the next inauguration rolls around in 2013, C will be 6. I hope for her that the road between now and then will be steady, that the economy and the world will right itself and that she will only vaguely realize how historic yesterday was -- because having an African-American president will be nothing new. It will just be the way it is.