Mandal-shod POTUS, with Sasha in Chicago (ap photo)
Happy Birthday, Miss Natasha Obama! The president’s youngest turns nine today. She will be spending her birthday in-town, although no deets yet from the White House on specific celebratory plans.
We don’t see much of the first daughters around the White House. Mostly they are spotted up on the Truman Balcony, or getting on and off Marine One and Air Force One. Sasha, the younger, often appears to be hopping, and bouncing. That may be all over, now that she is a mature young person of nine.
The president told NBC News in a recent interview that slumber parties are a big feature of life on the mansion’s upper floors:
“The happiest thing about the past year and a half has been the girls’ adjustment. They have just been terrific,” he said with parental pride. “They’re doing well in school. They’re not as constrained. They can wander around. Their Secret Service protection is a lot more low-key. And so, they’ve got soccer, they’ve got basketball. They go to sleepovers at their friends’ houses.”
And, they have sleepovers at their house.
“Sometimes I’ve got 12 little girls screaming on the third floor of the White House,” Obama said.
Inaugural cuteness (ap photo)
“I get a little worried about them when they’re teenagers, because I think that’s the time when you’re already embarrassed about your parents,” Obama told NBC News. “And then imagine if your dad’s in the newspaper every day and people are calling him an idiot. So I feel a little worried about that.”
Sasha and Malia, whose 12th birthday is July 4. (ap photo)
“On the other hand, Malia and Sasha have turned out to be unbelievably well-adjusted kids,” Obama said. “The thing that’s most important to me is that they’re so respectful of everybody and haven’t gotten any airs. I attribute that directly to Michelle because she wouldn’t put up with any of that stuff.”
