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"See pictures of Michelle Obama&amp;#039;s style  RE: Let&amp;#039;s start by talking about the past year. What did you think was going to be hard that was surprisingly easy or more fun than you thought?  MO: Living here [at the White House] is a lot of fun, primarily because the people who work here have a warmth and a way about them; they make every family feel special. And you know, there&amp;#039;s no way that you could imagine that having over 90 people working in the house that you live in would still feel like home. But it does. And that&amp;#039;s a very pleasant surprise.  RE: What&amp;#039;s been harder than you thought it would be?  MO: I don&amp;#039;t think that anything I have done has been hard. It&amp;#039;s just that the constant worry still exists when you&amp;#039;re a mom that the decisions you make in your life are negatively impacting your kids. I worried about that before I was here. I want to make sure that the girls are doing well, and that they feel like they have the love and attention they deserve from their parents, regardless of what positions we hold. And I think I&amp;#039;ll always worry about that until they&amp;#039;re 35 with their own kids.   RE: I don&amp;#039;t think you ever stop worrying about that. That&amp;#039;s what I hear, anyway.  MO: Right, right. [Laughs] RE: I&amp;#039;ve seen how packed your schedule is. What gives you the energy to get through your days?  MO: People give me the energy. I can start the day pretty tired. Today, for instance, I woke up extra early, did a vicious workout. I mean, killer! Lots of cardio. So I was really tired, but then you walk into the Department of Labor [where, earlier in the day, Mrs. Obama gave a speech and visited the child-care center], and people are fired up. They&amp;#039;re excited to see you, and the minute you step out there and begin to talk about the issues that you care about, you feed off of the energy and the hope and the excitement of the people who are there to see you. All the fatigue goes away.  RE: What do you miss most about private life? Things like running out to Starbucks?  MO: That it&amp;#039;s private! The little nothings in life that we don&amp;#039;t do anymore: Running an errand. Walking into your kid&amp;#039;s school without causing a fuss. Going out to dinner without a press pool. [Laughs] RE: How do you stay in touch with your girlfriends? MO: Lots of e-mails. I e-mail with a friend probably every day. And fortunately some people have moved here (not necessarily because they are working for the Administration), and we have a lot of visitors, too. I find that over the span of this year, my interaction with my friends really hasn&amp;#039;t changed. Because when you&amp;#039;re busy working... RE: It&amp;#039;s e-mail anyway. MO: Right, it&amp;#039;s e-mail anyway.  RE: What gets you through the really stressful times? Do your friends help?  MO: You know who helps me? My husband. His temperament for the stressful part of the job is amazing. When I&amp;#039;m getting antsy and frustrated and tense, I just say, &amp;quot;Talk me through it. Tell me why this is OK.&amp;quot;  RE: Husband as therapist. This is something I really do believe in. MO: [Laughs] He&amp;#039;s incredibly even-keeled, and he&amp;#039;s always been good at understanding the bottom line of what&amp;#039;s important. So the mission, the goal, is always out there. And sometimes you need to be reminded of that when things feel a little tough. So he helps a lot. RE: And where does your faith come into play? MO: You know, faith is critical to doing big things \u2014 and for me, this is pretty big. Doing something like this, there&amp;#039;s a huge leap of faith that you take. And when times are tough, you have to tap into that faith and realize there&amp;#039;s a reason for this \u2014 that every high and low has a purpose. I try to remain open to all the lessons that each of these experiences is supposed to teach me, so I don&amp;#039;t miss them. [Laughs] RE: Do you feel like there&amp;#039;s one lesson that you have to learn again and again? MO: If it&amp;#039;s anything, it&amp;#039;s just continuing to tell myself to be patient. It&amp;#039;s like standing up straight. Just be patient. Things take time. RE: I want to talk for a minute about your kids, about parenting and what that is like here. What do you know about yourself now that you didn&amp;#039;t know before you became a mother? MO: The endless extent of my love for my kids. It&amp;#039;s just boundless. And you really don&amp;#039;t expect that. I didn&amp;#039;t know that I would spend every other minute of my life thinking about my kids in the way that I do. I&amp;#039;m this independent working woman with a career and so forth, but no matter what, their images, their needs, their desires, and my thoughts of them are flowing constantly through my head in a way that I would have never expected. And it&amp;#039;s good! RE: Here&amp;#039;s one thing I&amp;#039;m curious about: How did Harvard Law prepare you for parenting? MO: Oh, goodness! [Laughs] I think it&amp;#039;s all the experiences along the journey, and Harvard was one of many important stops along that journey. But it&amp;#039;s the culmination of experiences that prepares you. I think parenting has so much to do with common sense and patience and remaining open. That&amp;#039;s another thing that my kids have taught me: to be completely open; to try not to steer the ship so much that you break the wheel. And kids force you to do that because they come into this world with completely different personalities in a way that I never thought. So there&amp;#039;s something that I learned with one child, and another different thing that I learned when I had the second. RE: Because they are so different. MO: They are so different, and they came here that way. I try not to set expectations for them, about their lives and who they&amp;#039;re going to be. And that&amp;#039;s helped me in my own life \u2014 to not overthink things or try to force the conclusion through the process. RE: Is there a mom rule that you never break? MO: Be kind to other people. How you treat people is really important in the world. RE: How&amp;#039;s it working out with your mom here, living in the White House with you? How&amp;#039;s the division of labor? MO: It has been wonderful. I never worried about the division of labor at all; I just wanted to make sure that my mom would be happy here. You know, that she would feel like she could have her life in the midst of all of this. And that has turned out to be the case. She wants us to have our own lives, and she has hers. So she&amp;#039;s very easy to live with. RE: Are there things that your mother does with the girls regularly?  MO: Yes, she takes them to school and rides home with them every single day, and unless there&amp;#039;s a parent-teacher conference, I don&amp;#039;t go. My mode of transportation is much more conspicuous than theirs, and the kids like it low-key.  RE: So if you and your mom ever disagree on child-rearing issues... MO: We just don&amp;#039;t. I am so much my mother&amp;#039;s child in that respect. I hear myself channeling her in so many ways. RE: What about when you and your husband disagree on a parenting issue. How do you work through that? MO: It&amp;#039;s like any disagreement. You talk it through: You know \u2014 &amp;quot;What are you really thinking?&amp;quot;...&amp;quot;This is my position.&amp;quot; But we don&amp;#039;t fundamentally disagree on a lot of stuff.  RE: So what is qualifying as couple time these days? MO: We have time every day. And Barack has said it before: This is the advantage of living above the store. I mean, we have dinner together every evening. RE: But family time is not the same as couple time. MO: When the kids go to bed and after he&amp;#039;s done a little reading, we&amp;#039;re usually curled up in our den, and we&amp;#039;ll watch a show together. Or we&amp;#039;ll talk and catch up. It&amp;#039;s nothing major, but that&amp;#039;s what marriage is about. Not the big, splashy stuff. It&amp;#039;s just the little day-to-day sharing and routines and rituals that we still have. And have much more here than we did before we moved here. RE: Do you feel more protective of him now that he&amp;#039;s President? MO: I&amp;#039;ve always been protective of him, so that hasn&amp;#039;t changed at all. I think my husband is wonderful; I view him as the leader I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to have for this nation. I want him to succeed because I think his success is ultimately our success as a nation. So in that way, yeah, I&amp;#039;m protective of him. RE: How do you cope with the inevitable fears about his safety? MO: You don&amp;#039;t even start walking down this path if fear is the guide. If any fears that I had were that great, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have supported his run in the first place. So once you cross that bridge, you make the decision that the journey is worth all the sacrifices. I have contemplated every single sacrifice that could potentially come, and we&amp;#039;ve decided that the impact that his holding this position can have in this nation and around the world is critical. And valuable. And so I don&amp;#039;t worry. At all.  RE: [Pause] Really? MO: I don&amp;#039;t. RE: I think that a lot of people couldn&amp;#039;t do that, and it says a lot about you that you can. Let me ask you about another aspect of your life: It can&amp;#039;t be easy to have your marriage under such scrutiny. How do you separate yourself from the really nasty criticism? MO: I just don&amp;#039;t take it in. It&amp;#039;s like anything \u2014 you know, I take in the healthy stuff in my life, and there&amp;#039;s a lot of it. There&amp;#039;s an abundance of it. And then you chalk everything [else] up to, Not everybody&amp;#039;s gonna love ya. You know? We learned that when we were kids. That was one of the messages my mom said: &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not on this earth to make everybody love you. You do what you think is right, you treat other people well, and then you keep living your life.&amp;quot;  RE: What is the toughest moment you&amp;#039;ve had together as a couple since you&amp;#039;ve come to the White House? MO: [Pause] You know, I think when we visited the families of the fallen soldiers at Fort Hood. That was pretty tough. But I was so glad that we were there. And for whatever relief our presence offered, we&amp;#039;d do it again and again and again. RE: But that wasn&amp;#039;t a struggle for the two of you. Has there been something that was tough for you as a couple? MO: No, not really. All the things that gave us trouble are \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t want to say are resolved, but when you have so much support around you, and you have the time together as a family, you can take care of your kids, and you see them whole and happy \u2014 then everything else is just minor stuff of the day. RE: What do you think other couples can learn from your marriage? MO: To the extent that there&amp;#039;s a lesson learned from another marriage, the thing that I tell lots of young couples is that marriage is hard work. Even the best of marriages require a lot of work \u2014 even if you&amp;#039;re married to your soul mate who has very few flaws. Building a life with a person other than yourself, and raising kids and dealing with all of the bumps and the bruises and the joys and the pains that go along with life, that creates the natural state of marriage, and it&amp;#039;s a challenge. I say that to people not to discourage them, but to say that you will inevitably hit those bumps. Don&amp;#039;t view that as a shortcoming of yourself or your spouse or your marriage. Don&amp;#039;t give up on it. Just understand that you&amp;#039;re going along the path that everybody else goes on. Go in ready for the work.  RE: You are famous for being your husband&amp;#039;s reality check, the one that keeps him grounded. But you can&amp;#039;t exactly tell him to stop by Walgreens and pick up some ant traps on his way home these days.  MO: No, no. He&amp;#039;s off the hook on all that stuff. He gets a pass! [Laughs] RE: So how do you keep him grounded now that he&amp;#039;s President? MO: When you come home from a hard day at work, and you&amp;#039;re sitting around the table with two or three very talkative females, and you try to go into your day, and there&amp;#039;s a little one that says, &amp;quot;OK, that&amp;#039;s nice, Daddy, but let me tell you what we had for lunch at school.&amp;quot; And then the other one goes into a long conversation about a funny joke that a friend told. You can see him realizing that they couldn&amp;#039;t care less! RE:[Laughs] Letting go of world peace, and moving on to the latest soccer game, right? MO: That&amp;#039;s right. Or having the nice, &amp;quot;Well, sounds like you had a hard day, Daddy. Anyway, as I was saying...&amp;quot; And you see his face loosening, and sort of the recognition that, Mmm-hmm, I&amp;#039;m home, and I can let that stuff go; right now, I&amp;#039;m Dad. And our friends also help. When you are with the people who know you best, they don&amp;#039;t know how to treat you any other way. We try to keep those folks close. RE: What do you think is the most challenging for your girls in this new chapter in their lives? MO: Our girls are pretty modest types, and they don&amp;#039;t like the attention, the hoopla. They will say things like, &amp;quot;Ugh, Dad, do you have to drive around with the sirens in the car? Do you have to block up all the traffic?&amp;quot;  RE: Good for them! [Both laugh] Early on, you defined yourself as Mom in Chief. Is that still who you feel like you are? MO: I will always feel like I&amp;#039;m Mom in Chief. I felt like I was Mom in Chief the minute I had a baby. Is that so controversial? For me, mothering is the thing I enjoy most in my life. I own that. There are many facets of me, but I feel like I have a responsibility as a mother first because they didn&amp;#039;t ask to be here. I need to make sure I am doing what I think I need to do for these girls, to make them whole and healthy human beings. That&amp;#039;s my first job, and it will hold true for the next...I don&amp;#039;t know when it ends! RE: I don&amp;#039;t think you ever stop being a mom. And I see how you want to guide other moms and kids, say, by planting the garden at the White House...  MO: Yes, it was a good jumping-off point for the conversation, because people relate to growing food, the beauty of the garden, and engaging kids in the whole process. The garden allowed us to lay an important foundation to better understand the nation&amp;#039;s pulse around this issue. Our childhood health initiative&amp;#039;s goal is really simple: We want to coordinate the resources of the federal government, and then partner with outside entities \u2014 business, nonprofits, foundations. Everybody is trying to do the best that they can for kids. We need to find a way to help make that easier without increasing the guilt and stress that is already upon many families. Getting kids better educated, making sure they have access to physical-fitness activities during the school day and outside [school] is important, as is making sure that issues of affordability and accessibility are dealt with. Because you can teach a kid that a carrot is important, but if he lives in a neighborhood where he has to commute five miles or 10 miles to buy a carrot, then no amount of education will help.  This is one of those issues that has no party. It has no race. It has no socioeconomic boundaries. This is about our kids.  RE: I know that you&amp;#039;ve done a lot of work for military families this year, too. I&amp;#039;m assuming that&amp;#039;s a cause that will continue to be of primary importance to you. MO: My approach has been, number one, to shine a light on it so that the rest of the country is aware of these challenges. Because I think right now, if you don&amp;#039;t live near a military community or have a loved one serving, it&amp;#039;s very easy not to have any idea of the challenge that servicemen and -women have, and veterans, too. Their stories of challenge and frustration, coupled with courage and clear sacrifice \u2014 and without any complaint \u2014 was very compelling to me. It&amp;#039;s the spirit of Americans that we talk about shining through. My message is always, &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t have to wait for the federal government to show gratitude. You can do it each and every day, looking around in your own community.&amp;quot; Usually if you look up, you will find a military family in your midst, in your church, in your school, in your community. And folks need very little at times. It&amp;#039;s, &amp;quot;I need somebody to help me pick up my kids from school.&amp;quot; Or maybe it&amp;#039;s, &amp;quot;I need a job.&amp;quot;  RE: How have your feelings toward veterans changed as you have met with more of them and their families? MO: I love visiting the military bases. I sat next to this one young man who had lost both legs. He had just finished a half marathon in a wheelchair. He&amp;#039;s an overachiever in so many ways, and still retains this spirit of optimism. I wish every American could spend time on a military base, because it changes the way you feel about our military forces. [Sighs] It makes any sacrifice I&amp;#039;m going through in my life seem minuscule in comparison. It bucks me up, in a way.  RE: To finish up, let&amp;#039;s talk about another thing that may buck you up \u2014 Mother&amp;#039;s Day. How does your family celebrate?  MO: It&amp;#039;s my day. I get to do what I want. I get to choose what we have for dinner, or if we go out.  RE: So what do you choose?  MO: It could be fried chicken...fried chicken and french fries or greens or macaroni and cheese. But it could also be burgers and fries, or it could be... RE: I see a pattern here: fries. MO: Yes, I&amp;#039;ve got to get fries in there! RE: I&amp;#039;ve learned a lot about you today; thank you for being part of our special anniversary issue.  MO: 125 years \u2014 that&amp;#039;s very cool! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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