Once we return to Washington, we are finally able to establish a routine. Routines, I learned long ago, are very important to raising somewhat normal children. Or at least the ability to schedule like a fiend.
We combine a general routine with Margaret's freakish scheduling abilities and come out pretty good most days. I get up every morning at 5 to work out. I have to be done by 6 to get the boys out of bed, cleaned up, fed and off to school by 7:00. I'm in the Oval Office no later than 7:15 and I work straight through until 6 p.m. We have dinner as a family every night at 6:30. CJ and I check homework after that and we have a couple hours of family time. Once the boys are in bed, I typically go back to the office until midnight.
The school day starts at 7:30. The boys attend the same private school they've been going to since Jonah and Isaac started first grade. Jacob is usually home by 3:30 each afternoon. He occupies a small section of the Oval Office in the afternoon to do his homework or read or color or otherwise entertain himself under my watchful eye. Most visitors don't even realize he's there. Isaac and Jonah both play basketball and have practice after school. They aren't home until 4:30, at which point Jonah bugs Margaret by trying to help her do her job and Isaac annoys his mother. All three are in bed by 9 o'clock at the latest.
CJ is up at 5 with me, but she sneaks in an hour of solitude before going down to the office at 6:30. She works twelve-hour days and rides herd on the boys if I have to work late.
Saturday is sacred and not just because it is the Sabbath. My staffers are required to take one full day off each weekend. It doesn't matter which day, but I want them at home with their families for an entire day each week. The other day is a half-day, unless the world is going to hell.
CJ and I work Sunday afternoons. We continue our Saturday tradition of morning temple and afternoon play, fiercely guarding our free time. I am accessible any other time, but our national security is the only thing important enough to interrupt Saturdays with my children and we have re-evaluated exactly what constitutes national security.
January fades into February and then into March. At the end of the first quarter, we get the first positive economic indicator of the year: the GDP is down again, but by the smallest margin in four years. That precipitates a Wall Street spending spree and drives the Dow to its highest point in same time period. The administration stresses cautious optimism and prays the growth continues.
The weather in DC turns vicious towards the middle of the month. Winter, like the recession, is refusing to loosen its grip on us.
March 20th is typically the day we celebrate Jacob's birthday. I picked that date to make it a joyous occasion of its own and separate it from the not so pleasant days surrounding his actual birthday. The fall is packed with birthdays and anniversaries and sadness of its own. The beginning of spring seemed a perfect time to celebrate.
After much discussion, and hair pulling from the Secret Service, we agreed Jacob could have a party on the Sunday before his 'birthday.' He was hoping for good weather and a pony. He got a blizzard and enough books to keep him occupied until I'm out of office.
Hosting a party for 18 six-year-olds is a bigger thing than organizing a State Dinner. We thought about feeding them all lunch, then CJ brought up the impressive range of food allergies Jacob's classmates seem to have. The chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream went over just fine and nobody got hives.
The two-hour get-together went well and for first time in a long while I found myself having fun. Mostly because I spent the day with a secret.
Jacob has an obsession with horses. I thought that particular childhood phenomenon was confined to the realm of girls. I thought incorrectly. Jacob is the only child I know who sits in front of ESPN Classic and watches old horse-jumping shows. It's freakish and I blame Donna.
Anyway, back to my secret. The last child has been sent home and we relaxing in the living area watching Jonah and Isaac play video games. Jacob is sitting on the sofa with me, reading one of his new books.
"Did you have a good birthday, Sport?" I ask, winking at CJ.
It is all I can do to not laugh when he scrunches his face up to think about my question. His eyebrows meet above his nose and his lips purse together.
"Yeah, Papa. I did," he finally decides.
Spring Break is next week and we are going home for 9 days. Not home to Georgetown, because what would the point of that be? We're going home, home. This is where Jacob will get his surprise.
When Donna and I got married, Leo and the Bartlets pooled together with a few other people and bought us an acreage in northeastern Connecticut, not far from the Massachusetts border. Twenty-five acres of woods to be precise. Not a building on it, not a road through it. All it had was a stream and a lot of trees.
Donna built her dream home, a six-bedroom, three-bathroom, modern-day log cabin. It's Wisconsin rustic, built in a turn-of-the-18th-century New England fashion and located in the middle of Connecticut horse country.
She always claimed it was the perfect place to raise children and goats. Which is what Abbey Bartlet always told me they had in mind when they gave it to us. At the moment, the only permanent residents are the wildlife.
And the horse who arrives on Wednesday.
"I still owe you a present, you know," I mention casually.
Jacob closes his book and crawls across the sofa to my lap. Jonah and Isaac, who are both in on the surprise, pause their game and grin in anticipation.
I put a great deal of thought into how to give him this gift, forming and discarding numerous scenarios until Jonah showed me the book he'd picked out for his little brother: an illustrated, easy-to-read version of Black Beauty. I correctly assumed it would be the first book Jacob would read.
"What did you get me, Papa?" Those huge brown eyes sparkle at me in anticipation. I am the master of birthday gifts and he knows it.
"Where's your book?"
He scrambles off my lap and grabs the discarded picture book. "Here."
"Have you finished it, yet?" He reads very well for a first grader, so it wouldn't shock me if he had.
"No." The ear to ear smile on his face fades a bit.
"Why don't you cheat and read the last page first?" I suggest.
His eyebrows draw back together while he considers committing this grave reading sin.
"Can't," he states firmly, sticking to his guns and refusing read the end first.
"Why don't you finish reading it before you go to bed tonight, then?"
"'Kay."
I shake my head in silent laughter when he curls back up in the corner of the sofa, returning to the magical pages where little boys can take care of horses.
Jonah rolls his eyes at me, then goes back to his video game.
The birthday boy falls asleep with five pages left in his book. When I pick him up to take him to bed, I realize I will not be able to coddle him much longer. In another year, he'll want to spend more time with his older brothers and far less time with his father. I will no longer need to carry him to bed and cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My sons are growing up and I am simply getting old.