Biproducts of Raising Children While Trying To Study A Lot of Random Stuff

I get a lot of questions about how I ever managed to get my biochemistry and DDS degrees while raising kids. First of all, it really doesn't seem that weird to me because I've never really known any different, so I can't really imagine it any other way. Secondly, I am a chronic multitasker.

When I first started back at school and I was still managing apartments to pay the bills, I was considered a full-time employee, a full-time student, and a full-time mom. To illustrate the many hats I had to juggle, I recall an experience that highlighted all the ways I was being stretched:

I was sitting in my office, which happened to be attached to my apartment. It was the first of the month, so there was a lot of traffic coming and going as people came in to pay the rent. I was also trying to study for a midterm exam I had coming up. Hayden was still in diapers, and Nathan was in kindergarten.

So I'm sitting in the office with a biology book on my lap, my shoulder holding a phone to my ear as I was talking to a prospective applicant, another tenant sits waiting on the couch for me to complete my phone conversation, I'm cutting an apple for the boys' afternoon snack with my right hand, Hayden clings to my ankle begging for said snack, and I'm cradling a baby hummingbird in my left hand because Nathan had just rescued it after it had been pushed out of its nest (did I mention I'm a humanitarian, too... *barf*).

I remember that day very vividly because it was my life, personified: Every limb occupied with a different task, trying not to drop the ball in any respect.

Usually, however, life was not so crazy. I actually enjoyed some of my conversations with the boys as they watched me study for various classes about physics, chemistry, and especially anatomy. Sometimes I would even take them to class with me. My boys have both attended lectures at a four year university. Ask them about the time we calculated rotational velocity in physics class. They thought it was a hoot! (They actually did, as the demonstration involved my professor "rotating" a hockey puck through the wall of the auditorium with a formidable slap shot.)

One time, while studying about the brain, Nathan came in and sat next to me as I studied the images carefully, trying to compartmentalize all the various regions and functions of the human "noodle." The cerebellum caught his eye, as its texture and shape look a bit out of the ordinary, comparative to the squiggly grey matter that comprises most of the brain. So I took the time to explain a little bit about it, pointed to its general region on the back of his head, and that was that...

Or so I thought.

Weeks later, as I was helping him wash his hair in the bathtub he points to the same region I had demonstrated to him while conversing about cranial anatomy, and says, "Mommy, don't forget to wash my cerebellum!"

My studies of anatomy were not lost on my (then) three year old Hayden, either. He came to sit with me as I studied about the inner ear. A picture of the cochlea was particularly fascinating to him, as the organ looks like a snail. I explained to him that the cochlea helps us to hear. I then proceeded to explain to him the semi-circular canals, which give us the capability of balancing and, when spun around too much, give us the sensation of dizziness. I figured my toddler was just humoring me, trying to find some time to cuddle with mom, and all the while he was listening to "blah blah blah."

Nope.

Once again, my words came back to me at the oddest of times. Hayden, performing one of his favorite past times, spins himself into oblivion, loses his balance, falls dizzily to the floor, looks up at me and says, "Oh mommy! My cochlea is so messed up!"

So there's proof: Our kids DO listen to us every now and then. You just never know what's going to sink in and make a big impression.