WASHINGTON — With an extensive travel schedule this month for United We Serve, the president’s volunteer initiative, First Lady Michelle Obama announced Monday that her daughters would spend the remainder of the spring semester with multi-millionaire widower Phillip Drummond in New York City.

An aide to Mrs. Obama confirmed that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, moved into Drummond’s lavish Park Avenue penthouse late last month.

“Mr. Drummond is a dear, dear friend whom I worked for during my undergraduate years at Princeton,” Mrs. Obama said in a press release.

According to White House sources, Drummond made a promise 24 years ago to the future First Lady that should she ever have children and need help raising them, he’d take them into his home and treat them as if they were his own.

Assisting Drummond in his efforts to make Mrs. Obama’s street-wise daughters feel welcome in his white, affluent world are his daffy housekeeper, Mrs. Garrett, and 13 year-old daughter, Kimberly.

Although Mrs. Obama has drawn near-universal praise for her work promoting the service program, Republicans have been quick to label her a hypocrite for dubbing herself “Mom-in-Chief” and then leaving her children for months at a time.  The First Lady has not taken the criticism lightly.

“The world doesn’t move to the beat of just one drum,” Mrs. Obama told reporters outside a volunteer conference in San Francisco. “What might be right for you, may not be right for some.”

The president, who has similarly taken some heat for the decision, addressed the subject at the beginning of his weekly radio address.

“Now before we get started, I know there’s been some fuss over my daughters going to live with Mr. Drummond this summer,” said Obama.  ”While Michelle and I already miss them terribly, I know they’re already loving New York City and all it has to offer.”

“And when you think about it,” he added,” they’ve really only gone from the White House to the Really White House.”

While they’ve only been out of Washington for a short time, the girls have already been forced to confront a host of social issues pertinent to adolescents while under Drummond’s roof.

According to sources, earlier this week, Sasha witnessed Drummond’s daughter Kimberly devour an entire sheet cake and then go to the bathroom to vomit.

When confronted by the seven year-old, Drummond’s daughter would admit nothing, prompting a skeptical Sasha to curl up her lower lip, squint her eyes, and ask “Wha’choo talkin’ bout, Kimberly?”

The adorable facial expression and “What’choo talkin’ bout?” catchphrase is expected to immediately take the nation by storm.

In addition to their exposure to eating disorders, the girls learned another important lesson last week when area bicycle-shop owner Mr. Horton tried to molest Malia’s friend Dudley. The incident has been credited for bringing the crime of child molestation and its warning signs more into the public eye.

Drummond assured reporters that the girls’ brushes with these issues had left them completely safe and perhaps better equipped to handle the challenges that would face them in their teenage years.

He also didn’t rule out the possibility of other socially relevant incidents occurring in the near future.

“Rumor has it, said Drummond, “that the First Lady herself will appear in my living room to tell the girls, and America, to just say no to drugs.”