Introduction

   A few months ago, my 4-year old daughter, Kaylee reportedly had a very interesting interaction with the dentist who came to visit her school.  During the annual oral health screening, she had apparently asked the dentist to take a look at her “gingiva” because she “bited it really really hard and it still hurted.”  When the dentist pulled her bottom lips forward, Kaylee decisively said, “No, silly, not my incisors!  It’s back there by my molars.”

   When Kaylee’s Pre-K teacher first told me that story, my initial reaction was that of the uncomfortable, awkward laugh, trying to brush off the fact that no, my kid is not a dork and no, I don’t spend my evenings educating my children on dental anatomy.  I think I said something like, “yeah…I guess it comes with having a Mommy who’s in dental school” but even I didn’t really buy that.  I mean, I had tried so hard to separate my day job from my home life, and intended to never let my kids feel the repercussions of my day to day life as a dental student.  I wanted a clear separation from my school and my family life so as to not burden them with all the strenuous demands that came with both.

   Obviously, I wasn’t all that successful as I soon recalled telling Kaylee to replace the word “gums” with “gingiva” so she wouldn’t confuse her little sister to make her think she actually had chewing gum in her mouth (something my 2 year old was very sensitive to since she isn’t allowed to chew gum just yet).  And I may have asked Kaylee at one point to help me sort through my school “teeth” to help me identify which ones I was missing….and I may or may not have treated her with a Gobstopper for every #3 and #14 she could find one morning when I was rushed to get to school in time for a fixed prosthodontics competency exam.  As for where she learned about incisors..the heck if I knew.  Probably from the “Teeth” episode on Yo Gabba Gabba where she learned her front teeth would one day fall out.

   Point being, I realized that day that no matter how hard I try, my life as a dental student, mom, wife, and whatever else I am will never be separated.  I guess I realized that Grace as a Mom is influenced by Grace as a student which is influenced by Grace as a wife which is influenced by Grace as, you know, just Grace.  I found this realization actually kind of sad, because I truly believed that I was going to be the best dental student regardless of my responsibilities at home, and that I was going to be the best Mom no matter what else I had going on…and it didn’t take very long for me to see that I was wrong.  In fact, I was really, REALLY wrong.  For a while I wondered if combining all these facets of my life made one (or all for that matter) take a huge hit because the balancing act was miserably failing.  Things that were not funny to begin with when I was just a Mom amounted to so much worse when combined with other things that were not funny when I was just being a dental student.  It was bad enough when my kid broke out in a rash and needed to be picked up from school, but it was way worse when that happened twice right before an exam.  It was hard enough when all my fake teeth came loose in my bag and I had to figure out how to sort them on my own, but it was really REALLY not funny when my kid took them all and buried them into a potted plant to “watch the seeds grow”.  There was a stretch of a few months this past year that seemed like it was one thing on top of another, and I almost lost the humor of it all.  But I was always saved by just remembering how characteristically worse off I’d been in the past, and it somehow made things much more bearable.

    One thing about me is that I am very well exemplified by all the “oopsies” of my life.  In fact, accidents define me.  Last year, I was that student who dropped her typodont right before handing in the final product during a waxing practical, the one who accidentally stabbed herself with a scalpel that was just used to cut open a dead body during gross anatomy lab, the one who’s computer shut off right before hitting the “submit” button for an exam because she left the power cord at home.  I’m often that Mom whose 2 year old always comes home wearing ghetto loaner clothes because she always forgets to restock her child's cubby with spare undies and pants, that Mom who signs up to bring stuff for a school function and then forgets, that Mom who thought “Purple Day” was “Crazy Hair Day” and subsequently sends her daughters into school with gel-plastered shark-fin hairdo’s that are just really not cool no matter how you try to look at it.  I’ve had 2 reconstructive surgeries, more broken bones, sprained joints, and black eyes than I care to count, and I drop things or fall down at least twice daily.  I’ve tried to be better with my lack of coordination and apparent attention to detail but I think I have to just come to grips with the fact that I will be saying “Whoopsies” everyday until the day I die.

   So, here I am in the last year of my 20’s, and finally able to embrace all the aspects of my life that define me instead of trying to change my ways or deny any part of who I am.  I’m just a dental student, and just a Mom, and I know I’ll continue to have mishaps along the way.  Maybe now I’ll settle on just accepting that, but hopefully in years to come when I look back at these ridiculous times, it might one day be just a thing of the past.  And maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll actually find it funny.