Science Marching and Dog Petting: The Rest of the Weekend at PapaGigi's

The weekend fun continued the morning after our fun and fancy event! We slept in as much as I am now capable of sleeping in (7:30ish- I let James sleep until the luxurious hour of 8:00 before I woke him up to entertain me) and then we lounged a bit before getting ready to attend the March for Science!

This trip to Houston worked out so perfectly- fancy party, local grandparents (for 24 hours anyway), and the March for Science in a big city with a huge scientific community! We love a good march and we love science (and facts, progress, technology, the earth, and more), and my parents wanted to come join in since both of them are also pro-fact/science/progress/earth and Gigi is a science TEACHER and master biologist, and our hotel was a few blocks away! It was all meant to be.

Gigi found a fellow teacher!

I packaged up my dress to be shipped back to my Fairy Godmother, donned my brand new science shirt (girls' section at Target!), and ventured out to the foreign streets of downtown Houston with James to find an open Starbucks. I haven't really explored Houston in years and it's such a real city now! You can walk the streets! There are green spaces and restaurants and trams and stores! It's now on the list of places I could live.

I had gone to Target earlier in the week to see if I could find some glitter for our Science signs, but ended up in the kids' t-shirt section instead. They have so many science ones! $22.50 later I had 4 shirts- one for me and each of the kids and I was so excited I forgot the glitter.

We worked on our signs on Thursday night. I just sort of wing'd it and hoped the letters would turn out somewhat even. James painstakingly hand-lettered perfect block letters in pencil until almost midnight and then never had time to fill them in. He did pause in the middle to draw me a picture of Earth. I know my limits.

We helped the kids with their signs when we got to my parents' house. I wanted them to hold signs that came from them, so we read them the March for Science mission statement and talked about the reasons we wanted to go. Landon, our life-long animal lover, decided to go with an animal theme, and Claire decided to pick one. I loved them both.

Cora's sign noted that all toddlers are Scientists-in-Training on one side and just said "VACCINATED!" on the other with a bunch of her doodles all around it. She declined to hold it at any time on Saturday. She also "lost" her dog-in-a-space-shuttle t-shirt I got her from Target and showed up at the march in her beloved rainbow maxi dress from her Easter Basket. Basically, Cora does Cora. We roll with it.

The march was super fun. Scientists and science-enthusiasts are such an earnest and nerdily adorable group. The signs were fabulous. Tons of kids were there. It was all very positive and just... earnest. So much earnestness. They just want their work to matter you guys. It's hard to describe if you aren't there, but it was just a really such a happy cheerful exercise. Sure most of the people there probably also think Trump is the worst and are mad about it, but that wasn't the main vibe of the event. It was nerdy and full of camaraderie. Like these are my people and we're all giggling over the fact that the square root of -1 is irrational and that makes your sign funny. Also, climate change is real. Facts are too. Now let's all admire this woman's Ms. Frizzle costume and this man's umbrella with DNA double-helixes hanging off the sides. Yay science!

Organizers were expecting 10,000 marchers and the police department estimated 15,000! (They were a lot of nods to the new "paid protester" fallacy- "I'm a Grad Student. Where's my check?" and "Unpaid Protester. Barely Paid Scientist.", which made me giggle. Also, I have not received my check.) Despite the 50% increase in participation, it was all super calm and organized. After the march there was a band playing- Tulipfinger- made up of five neuroscientists, and several speakers from the local scientific community.

Unfortunately, Cora was super done with her act of citizenship so we headed home, but it was fun. I'm really glad we were able to be part of it.

Back at the house, the kids immediately jumped in the pool even though the water was freezing and the temperature was like 20 degrees colder outside than we were marching.

Kids are crazy.

Also, while we were away being fancy, my parents took the kids to an arcade/bowling/movie place and they had a BLAST.

Obviously, they missed us every minute.

And last, because it's late and I still haven't recovered from returning from our first ever ER trip with Claire at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning. (She's fine now. Thanks science!), Cora is obsessed with dogs. And cats. But my parents happen to have dogs. She sat next to Maximus for hours (really, lots of minutes, but in toddler time, that's hours), just petting him and telling him he's so soft.

All in all it was a pretty great weekend! We left early Sunday morning because Landon had a birthday party at 12:30 and it's a 4 hour drive home. The birthday party was at a TCU baseball game, Landon's first ever baseball game, and now he is OBSESSED. This was... unexpected, particularly since neither James nor I enjoy baseball even a little bit, but now here we are, pitching and tossing balls in the front yard every single minute Landon is home, we are awake, and the sun is out. But more on that- and the seriously great recipes I've tried so far this week - the next time I try to get a post published before midnight while semi-paying attention to whatever TV show we're watching (currently Girlboss, which is entertaining enough that it took me Forever to write this. I need James to pick duller shows.).