On another note what did you all think of her victory night dress?

Here’s what the next first lady of the United States told Newsweek in a recent interview right before election night about moving to DC and raising kids in the national spotlight:

Settling in with the family in Washington … do you have any idea of how you ‘ ll do that?
Michelle Obama: We’ll be using every second of the transition time to work out timetables and timelines and all that good stuff. But the hope is that everybody settles in at the same time. So that we won’t be transitioning portions of the family at different periods of time. But how, when and where—we don’t know enough. At this stage, it’s difficult to really have good conversations about schools and all that stuff because you don’t want to measure the drapes.

They say you ‘ re the one who keeps it real. So how do you keep it real in the White House? Have you talked to other people about the experience yet?
Not yet. I’ve talked to Hillary Clinton, who has been a wonderful resource. But again, I’ve tried not to even come close to being presumptuous. It just seems rude to even begin to have those conversations in the midst of a campaign. Some of the work that I have to do during this transition period is really sit down with people who have been through it and get an understanding of what happens in this bubble. How does it work? And what are the parameters that I have to work in. Our hope is that we do some of what we’ve been doing for the last year and a half. That we really treat our family life as separate as you can, that we keep the girls’ lives very set apart from this whole experience. Which means we have to just pretend like this isn’t happening [laughs]. And we’ve gotten sort of good at it. It’ll be a little bit more challenging, but I think that staying connected to friends and family who know you … I’m hoping that my mother will come with me. I’m begging her.

She said there wasn ‘ t enough space or didn ‘ t want to intrude.
Yeah, whatever [laughs]. But just continuing to make sure that our first priority is getting them into schools that make sense for them, making sure that they have activities that they care about, that we’re there for them to help them with their homework, that we go to their parent-teacher conferences, that we go to all their events. It’s important to continue to do that, no matter what their father’s job is. And he has to continue to make them a priority even as he’s the leader of the free world. I think that’s an important thing for him to model for others. It’s this notion that if he can do it, then we all have to really fight for it.

The conversations with Hillary Clinton: didn ‘ t they also involve the subject of raising kids in the White House?
Oh, absolutely. I’ve always admired what she has been able to do with Chelsea. You can tell from one conversation with Chelsea that she’s a mature, decent, well-balanced young lady. And they [the parents] did something right. [Hillary] talked about how they were very protective of her personal space, and how they created some real clear hard boundaries that were never crossed. That went a long way to retaining some normalcy for her. But I also hope to talk to Laura Bush and Tipper Gore and Rosalynn Carter.

Photo: AP