The Mommy Brain Blog

I write this with great trepidation, but I've finally decided to take my kids, aged 13 and 10, to an election night party. Anything could happen before Tuesday, heaven forbid, but I am encouraged enough by the polls and by the candidate to believe there's a chance that they'll have reason, right into their young adulthoods, to remember the night as a historic and so-necessary turning point for our country. It bears being with lots of other like-minded people.

In my own life, justifiably wary of politicians and in any case necessarily on the sidelines, as a journalist, I've never before been as engaged in a campaign as I have with this one, as much as I wish I'd done more. I've spent hours making calls to swing states, written letters to other mothers in Missouri, watched every single debate, even worn (eek!) an "Obama Mama" t-shirt. Worried, cautious, skeptical, doubting, I nonetheless appear to have moved past the point of praying that he'll get elected to praying he won't let us down.