So I had an idea while we were in Michigan about how to make this blog more about understanding academic life. I thought it would be cool to interview academic spouses to get a sense of what they do and how they cope with being married to an academic. That way any academic spouses that read this blog will hopefully realize they are not alone! 

It's meant to be fun and thoughtful and provide a little bit of perspective on an academic spouse's lifestyle. I'll be sending out the questions to the people I know in the hopes that they will be willing to share a little of their own adventure. If you're an academic spouse and you'd like to share you story, contact me through the link under my photo on the right and I'll get back to you ASAP. Or if there's a certain question you would like to see answered, please let me know.

Here my snapshot...

Name: Samantha

Number of Years Married: 9

Number of Children: 2

Places We Have Lived:
Knoxville, TN (University of Tennessee)
Ann Arbor, MI (University of Michigan)
Kingston, Ontario (Queen's University)

My Current Occupation: Stay-at-Home-Mom

What I do with My Time:
I'm in charge of running the house, herding our kids and taking care of all the things that have to get done in order for us to function on a day-to-day basis. When I'm not doing that (which isn't often) you can usually find me running around with our kids, doing stuff for our kids' school, playing with rocks, or working on some project that may or may not get finished any time soon. 

My Spouse's Academic Field: Evolutionary Biology & Ecology

My Spouse's Current Occupation: Postdoctoral Fellow @ Queen's Univesity

The Best Part of being Married to an Academic:
Right now my husband's schedule is pretty flexible, so he's able to be around when I need him or when he wants to be. It's really nice that he has a job that allows him a bit of freedom. 

The Worst Part of being Married to an Academic:
When Clay brings his laptop to bed. On those nights I know he'll be working into the early hours of the morning and that usually means he'll be dis-functional when the alarm goes off. Thankfully, I learned how to sleep with the lights on years ago.

Anyone who thinks academics is a soft job can think again. Clay tried to shove a glass tube through his hand this week and got two stitches for his efforts. Well, I guess he didn't try to do it...he just did it. That's always a fun conversation to have....

Me - "Hey!"
Clay - "Hey."
Me - "So, Cole went to Zach's house. I told him we would pick him up around 4:45 and walk downtown for dinner."
Clay - "Okay."
Me - "Is everything okay?"
Clay - "Not really. I just shoved a glass tube into my hand. Bill says I need to go to Urgent Care."
Me - "Uhhhh...okay. Do you need us to go with you?"
Clay - "That's probably not a bad idea. I'm feeling kind of woozy."

Let me tell ya that was not on my list of things to do Thursday evening. Who knew academics could be so dangerous?

Trips to the hospital have just added to the craziness this week. The fun fair is next weekend, so I've been really busy trying to help get everything ready for that. It's been a lot of fun, but I haven't had time for my Daphnia unfortunately. I considered bagging the whole experiment when we came back from our trip and I realized that none of my females produced any male offspring. It was more than a little surprising since we stressed them out a decent amount. I thought for sure that they would start producing males, but no soup. Needless to say, since that was the whole point of my little experiment, I was pretty disheartened. 

Clay was the one who insisted I keep the experiment alive. And since I'm pretty sure a lot of scientists have failed on their first attempts, I decided to take his advice and keep going. I stuck some new Daphnia into individuals vials and away they go. Clay has been feeding them for me this week since I'm barely keeping up with the other stuff I have to do, but I'm hoping I'll be back at it after the fun fair.

We still have over a month left of school, but I'm already thinking about the summer. 

I would like to say that the finer parts of summer have been weighing on my mind - wonderful things like no alarm clocks and afternoons at the splash-pad - but I'm sorry to say, that's not the case. I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to keep my kids' brains working when there's no work to be done. Math, science, reading...it all gets a little fuzzing during the 8 weeks of no school, if we don't practice but this year I'm most concerned about writing. 

Cole hates writing. He loathes it. We worked on two short answer practice test questions the other day for over an hour...on Mother's Day! It's painful for him and me because he completely shuts down whenever he has to do it. His attitude goes sour, his posture gets schlumpy, and he'll latch on to anything to distract himself. It's certainly not for lack of imagination. That boy dreams up some of the craziest things. I have been privy to hundreds of endless conversations about ideas he has come up with...he's just unwilling to write it down.

In light of his problem, and as a way to encourage him, I'm considering having the kids keep journals this summer. But the questions is how do I keep it light and fun while still having them do it every day? 

For Cole, I'm thinking about creating a custom journal that has some blank pages in it as well as some guided writing pages. The guided pages would be something like look at the picture and create a story to go with it or create an idea for a new video game and write down the details. 

For Isabel, the journal would be simpler. I was thinking of having her do things like write down words and draw pictures. I'm still looking for good ideas for her journal.

My hope is that journaling will give both kids an opportunity to be creative and express themselves while still practicing a really important skill that's easy to ignore when schools not in session.

I'd love to hear some of your ideas if you have any.

For the past couple months I have been helping Clay out in the lab transferring his Daphnia, maintaining his french jars - things no rational wife would ever do. I do it to be helpful. I do it to ensure that he gets time to do his other work as well. I do it to make sure he comes home for dinner.

Anyway, you might remember that a while back I got sucked into the whole scientific process when I noticed our Daphnia started producing resting eggs. I was amazed that such a tiny little creature could do such complicated things and that's when my brain started turning over the idea of running my own little experiment. 

Well, the experiment is off and running. Someday I'll explain it all, but not today. The main point I need to make for this post is that in order to make my experiment work, I need male Daphnia. And for the past few weeks I've been working toward getting my little ladies to spawn some boys. 


So, you can imagine my surprise when the other day I realized that Clay already had some fully grown male Daphnia....by accident. I was transferring the Daphnia when I came across a few that have been baffling me. They weren't growing as big as the others and they weren't producing eggs. It has been confusing me for weeks to be honest. And then I had an "A-Ha" moment. Everything clicked into place and I realized that those baffling Daphnia were in fact male which is why they weren't having babies.


I had kept them by accident, no knowing they were male, because I needed to replace some of the older females. To be sure, I checked them out under a scope and sure enough....we have boys!

Here's a picture of a female just for comparison.

The difference between the two is probably only apparent to people who study Daphnia - or if you're me - people who have stared at them many a time. The males have a flat face, hairy chest and look like they're smoking a cigar. Typical male, huh?

Anyway, to make this long story shorter my experiment is officially in full swing. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Today's lesson?

Accidental science is still a victory!

So yesterday I took Cole to help out with a research project in the psychology department. *For any concerned individuals- he volunteered. I didn't force him into it.

They put this crazy cap on him so they could measure his brain activity while he was watching something on a computer. 

Is that hat awesome or what? It looks like he has a giant electronic squid sitting on top of his head. It even left little red dots on his skin when they took it off like he had suckers stuck to him. 

It was lots of fun for me to watch and Cole did a great job. It's always hard to know how well kids will tolerate research experiments, so I was really impressed with how patient he was with the whole process. It took a while to get the cap on just right.

You may be wondering why I let my kids volunteer for research. The answer is simply this....I understand the hard work that goes into the whole academic process. Clay never did any type of experiments that utilized human subjects, but I kind of feel like we're paying back all of the help he got during his PhD program. Besides, it makes the kids feel like they're a part of something special and that alone makes it worthwhile.

Why is it that you have to go to school for 4+ years to get a PhD, but there's is absolutely no formal education to go through before you become a parent?

I've asked myself this question countless times since becoming a parent, usually when I'm at the end of my patience, when I can't make heads-or-tails of some situation, when my kids do something that stuns me into silence and I have absolutely no control over any of it. Needless to say, that question comes up often, floating to the front of my mind when I'm feeling my most inept.

Then, just as quickly, the answer presents itself - in the form of my children. You don't have to be a genius to realize that they are completely different people...despite having the same genes encoded in their bodies, despite being raised in the same environment by the same people...they are so dissimilar it's almost mind-boggling. And thinking about that helps me to remember that for every parent out there, no matter how many kids you have, each time is like the first time. Sure, the second child is easier because you know what to expect. The first child clued you into the fact there's a rhyme and reason to this parenting thing, but the rhyme is always different, the reason always changing.

The truth is that parenting is only something you can learn to do by doing it.

It can be messy and unpleasant. It can be downright painful. And there are (many) moments when you won't get it right. But, I think, being honest with yourself - and your kids for that matter - about how difficult it is and how unprepared you are sometimes is the most important part. It allows you to move forward, unafraid, because you realize that there are no right or wrong answers. It allows you to be more open to experiencing life and all the good and bad that comes with it. 

So, for all you parents out there that find yourselves wondering when the next class on parenting is, don't worry. You've earned your degree several times over by now. Just slap a couple periods in between those letters that spell out M.O.M. or D.A.D. and call it good.