Today is a sympathy post going out to Jane Marie Sullivan Roberts, wife of John Roberts (nominee to the supreme court). No, this is not a politically biased post about her husband's positions and what good or harm he might bring to the court. This is about the press conference. Have you seen the clip? Here's a picture from yahoo news. But it really doesn't do it justice.



If you have an active child you can totally appreciate this moment, what she was feeling pissed, mortified, angry, and yes paniced - what was he going to do next? In the clip you see her trying to keep her upper body perfectly still while slowly reaching out to grab Little John only to have him scoot away. He danced around behind her, he danced around in front of her, and when I saw it I kept thinking - god I'm impressed the President acted like nothing was wrong.

I have a friend who has calm children and she was doing the "I cant' believe she let her son act like that" routine. Are you kidding? She was standing on the precipe ready to fall into hell. If she reached out and grabbed him at the wrong time he would have bellowed and then REALLY made a scene. Or even better he could have done that fall to the ground while you have them by the arm so it looks like you're totally abusing them if you didn't know any better. That would have definately made some news somewhere.

You know she's thinking "Daddy is getting nominated to be the next Supreme Fucking Court Justice and you are doing this to me NOW? COME HERE YOU LITTLE FUCKER". I mean look at her expression in this picture. Instead of the joy and pride in her hubbys accomplishments, she's thinking - next time they tell me I need to trot these kids out for a photo opp, I'm telling the PR people to suck it and I'm leavin' them with the baby sitter!

So Mom's you've been there - had that moment in public where you kids made you want to scream, you wanted to tie them up and throw them in the car, and you were just dying inside because this was NEVER how you invisioned motherhood. Now you know, it could be worse, you hubby could be standing beside the President while being nominated as a supreme court justice.

The only thing that would have made this better (sorry Jane Marie) is if Little John would have gone up to the President during the announcement - tapped him on the leg - "'scuse me?" "Oh heh heh, look it's John's son, what is it boy?" "Um, my Daddy says you're an idiot - what does idiot mean?". If he had done that I would have personally given Little John a shopping spree in Toys R Us. (sorry, a little bit of politics never hurt anyone).