I try to have no absolute nos. I love french fries, I like a good burger, and I like pie. And that's okay.

When I was little, I wanted to be a mother, because that's who I saw. I saw my mom caring for me. I didn't play doctor. I didn't play lawyer. I didn't have those visions until I was in college, meeting people who were doing those things. That's why we're trying to encourage moms, teachers, fathers, to be that presence in their children's lives, in their communities, because it really makes a difference.

Talking is good. Conversations have to be forever.

We as parents are our children's first and best role models, and this is particularly true when it comes to their health. ...We can't lie around on the couch eating French fries and candy bars and expect our kids to eat carrots and run around the block.

Every day, the people I meet inspire me... every day, they make me proud... every day they remind me how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth.

But, as potentially the first African American first lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations; conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman?

We all grew up in communities with grandmothers who cooked two, three vegetables that you had to eat. There was no ifs, ands or buts about it. But that's because many of our grandparents, they had community gardens; there was the vegetable man that came around. There were many other resources that allowed them to have access. So it's not that people don't know or don't want to do the right thing; they just have to have access to the foods that they know will make their families healthier.