DC Trip!

After the Newtown tragedy, I just couldn't stop thinking about those poor little children.  I thought about how Skyla goes to school now and it just scared me so much.  As soon as we got back from Maine I decided I needed to do something.  I started by joining a Facebook group called One Million Moms for Gun Control, started by a stay-at-home mom of 5 from Indiana named Shannon Watts.  I joined several other groups, started making phone calls and sending emails, and urged everyone I knew to do the same.  I even filmed a couple of videos here in the city that were produced by the "Demand a Plan" people.  Finally I learned about a march in DC that was planned for late January and my mom and I decided to go!  We quickly got in touch with our DC relatives and Alex offered her guest room.  I was very excited to see all of them and to take part in this event, but I was also very nervous about leaving my sweet baby girl for the first time.  Can't think of a better reason though!

The day of the march was very cold but that didn't stop thousands of us from marching.  My mom and I were lucky enough to be joined by my cousin Fabrizia and my cousin Christiana's oldest daughter Tosca.  As soon as we got there we found the area where most of the out of state people were gathering and I immediately saw Shannon Watts!  I went up to her and said sort of awkwardly, "It's you!" and proceeded to tell her what an inspiration she is to me and then introduced my family.  Then we marched toward the Washington Monument where they had a stage set up for a ton of speakers.  It was freezing so it was hard to stand there but there were many powerful speakers.  Colin Goddard, one of the survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre spoke, and he had the best line of the day directed at Congress: "How can you ask a teacher to stand up to a guy with an AK-47 instead of asking yourselves to stand up to a lobbyist with a check book?"  There was another really powerful moment with they asked people holding signs with the names of people who had been killed since Newtown and we had a moment of silence.  Shannon Watts also spoke, and she was very modest while also being inspiring.  The last speaker was Kathleen Turner and she was awesome.

We had the whole weekend in DC, so I spend some of the next day by myself at the Museum of American History.  It was so nice just being able to meander around with no real schedule, and not having to worry about the needs of anyone else for the first time in a very long time.  The museum was very interesting; a few highlights were the exhibit about food that included a replica of Julia Child's kitchen, the lunch counter made famous during the Civil Rights Movement, and my favorite, the exhibit about the Presidents and the First Ladies.  They had many of the gowns those women wore, and they even had Michelle Obama's jewelry from the inauguration -- bam!

On Sunday morning we went to brunch with Paula, one of my mom's oldest friends.  Brunch was delicious!  She dropped us off back in downtown DC where we met Christiana and had a great time hanging out with her.  First we snapped a few quick pics in front of the White House.  We went to a cafe and got all caught up, then went to the Museum of Natural History.  I had promised myself that I would practice Italian with Christiana while I was there, so we spoke only in Italian for pretty much the whole time at the museum.  She advised me about some good ways to keep improving and keep helping Skyla learn the language.  I really appreciated everything she had to say -- after all, she has taught Italian for a long time and raised 3 bilingual daughters!

 

I learned a lot when I was on the trip and in the end I was definitely happy I went.  The most powerful feeling I had though was the irresistible urge to hold Skyla!  I enjoyed the little bit of freedom I had that weekend but more than anything I just wanted to be home with my family.