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be offered the job. But no matter how it panned out, I knew I’d at least done
something good for myself in speaking up about my needs. There was power, I
felt, in just saying it out loud. With a clear mind and a baby who was starting to
fuss, I rushed us both back home.

his was the new math in our family: We had two kids, three jobs, two cars,
one condo, and what felt like no free time. I accepted the new position at the
hospital; Barack continued teaching and legislating. We both served on the boards
of several nonprofits, and as much as he’d been stung by his defeat in the
congressional primary, Barack still had ideas about trying for a higher office.
George W. Bush was now president. As a country, we’d endured the shock and
tragedy of the terror attacks of 9/11. There was a war going on in Afghanistan, a
new color-coded threat advisory system being used in the United States, and
Osama bin Laden was apparently hiding somewhere in a cave. As always, Barack
was absorbing every bit of news carefully, going about his regular business while
quietly developing his own thoughts about it all.

I don’t recall exactly when it was that he first raised the possibility of
running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. The idea was still nascent and an actual
decision many months away, but clearly it was taking hold in Barack’s mind.
What I do remember is my response, which was just to look at him
incredulously, as if to say, Don’t you think we’re busy enough?

My distaste for politics was only intensifying, less because of what went on
in either Springfield or D.C. and more because five years into his tenure as state
senator Barack’s overloaded schedule was starting to really grate on me. As Sasha
and Malia grew, I found that the pace only quickened and the to-do lists only got
longer, leaving me operating in what felt like a never-ending state of overdrive.
Barack and I did all we could to keep the girls’ lives calm and manageable. We
had a new babysitter helping out at home. Malia was happy at her University of
Chicago Laboratory School, making friends and loading up her own little
calendar with birthday parties and swim classes on weekends. Sasha was now
about a year old, wobbling on two feet and beginning to say words and crack us
up with her megawatt smiles. She was madly inquisitive and utterly bent on
keeping up with Malia and her four-year-old buddies. My hospital job was going
well, though the best way to stay on top of it, I was discovering, was to hoist
myself from bed at 5:00 a.m. and put in a couple of hours on the computer