please tell me more about how the heart works

The other day a fellow MIM who doesn't actually blog here (as far as I know) recounted a story to me about her child's bedtime routine that I found funny and oh so familiar. Have you found that almost all of them (those children of ours) want to stay up just a little bit later? Indeed they are oh so in tune to what enthuses mommy and/or daddy. And what would allow them a few more minutes (hours??) of wakeful banter? When they want to stay up even later than their working parents already let them, all they need to ask is just one little question...


It goes something like this, "Mommy, can you tell me again how the heart pumps the blood around the body?" Or perhaps "Daddy, will you remind me how the lungs work again?" It can happen whether we're pulmonologists or cardiologists, and even a health services researcher might succumb to a innocent query like "Can you review regression analysis one more time?" We're weak when it comes to an opportunity to explain what we love to do, our primary involvement when we are not with our precious little ones. And they know with that simple question, "How does the food get all the way from my mouth to my large intestine?" they've bought themselves more not-yet-sleeping Mommy/Daddy time.