October 26, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s 5:53am and I’m sitting at the kitchen table. We are back from Harvard’s Family Weekend, when freshmen and junior parents are welcome to campus to partake in lectures, activities and many happenings. Each family has a different student they are visiting, and every family has a different experience.

We were missing our oldest who was happily sleeping late in his apartment in the Bay Area (although we tried to facetime him several times), but the three of us were together through this important weekend. We reconnected and made memories, and we progressed in our relationships and understanding of each other, our new reality of being a spread-out family, and the world.

It was an absolutely beautiful weekend, and I shared many reels on Instagram. The task of helping a child to be enrolled as a first year at Harvard is a herculean task. But in the end, it’s a university like many universities but it’s her university and we get to celebrate her. And we make no apologies for it.

Here I am celebrating it with a hat!

And we got stickers, and bags. We bought mugs, and were going to buy more stuffed animals – but they ran out of the cute cheerleader /minibear that I liked. I’m going to go back and find it again on my next trip there.

That’s it! We are back and had a wonderful time as a family. I still was plugging away and doing some climate work. It can be overwhelming how many climate projects we are involved in, but it’s important to do to have a livable future for my children and all our children, and our patients (if you are a pediatrician or a nurse).

Thank you for letting me share my favorite picture from the weekend!!!