OBAMA DAY - part II

      And how! Our view back to the Capitol 

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

President Obama! 

(That's Katy, Jason and Sophie in the orange jacket in the foreground)

So PEBO did it. He survived inauguration and will go to bed tonight as the first African-American leader of the USA provided he makes it through the last few inaugural balls he still has to tick off. And Louis did it too. He also survived inauguration despite the sub zero temperatures although it was touch and go at one point when the emotion of the occasion threatened to overcome surely the crowd's youngest newspup. For the most part though Louis was all smiles and delighted to be able to claim his place in history as part of the largest inauguration crowd ever at an estimated 1.8 million. 

With space on the Mall already at a premium by 8am we reckon we did well to find ourselves a spot on surely the most revered of the Mall's many presidential monuments, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Where better to watch - okay, to listen to - Barack Hussein Obama get sworn in as president than a monument to the man who ended slavery in a country built on the blood of the new president's forefathers? That we were some two miles from the scene of the action mattered not a jot when so much history was our's for the taking. 

Apart from The Moment of the day - when President Obama took the oath of office, my personal Mom highlight had to be when the waiting crowd on the Lincoln steps cheered Louis after I lifted him up for a better view of the seething mass of humanity stretching back to the Capitol. We'll have to see if his smiling little mug winds up in tomorrow's Washington Post because he was snapped by one of their photographers - as well as by many others. 

We might not be American, but given the country's sway over the rest of the world, it was impossible not to be awed by what one man achieved today. It's strange - and exciting - to think what a difference that man could make to my little boy's life. And to think, Louis will always be able to say that he was there. 20.01.09. Quite a day.