Weekends are reserved for buying groceries, running errands, doing laundry and cooking enough food for the next six days. On Friday nights Ocon will put on some jazz, draw up a bubble bath and spend the rest of the evening playing with Bailey.

But in households structured around the inconsistent needs of young children, nothing runs like clockwork.

"My schedule is not down. It'll never be down," Ocon says. "So much that I do is just survival. It's frustrating because you spend your whole life figuring out how to get from point A to point B."

Point A was somewhere in middle school, when Ocon played court during recess as the Harvard-educated prosecuting attorney.

Point B is now, with Ocon scrambling for extensions, babysitters and sleep--the flip side of life as an undergraduate, whose main extracurricular activity is a bouncing, pale-blond toddler, with rice-cake crumbs streaked across her chin.

The journey that took Payanzo from living as a free spirit on a cross-country adventure to being a Harvard undergraduate raising a child is also a story about connecting two very distinct points.

When Payanzo deferred admission for two years to make her trip, little did she know a constant companion would hinder the spontaneity of her college career.

"It's not like you could go to your room and say 'whatever', like high school," she says. "At times I feel like I can't do it. Why is my life so not my life?"

At times Payanzo's tight schedule has forced her to take Dylan to classes. Payanzo recalls that Dylan was well-behaved in French section, except for that one day when he burst out laughing and couldn't stop for the rest of the hour.

Even on a simple errand like a trip to Byerly Hall, Dylan tags along.

After delivering a form to the Financial Aid Office, they take a short break to practice "feet moving." With a smirk on his face. Dylan shows off his walking (and climbing) skills on a table by the elevator outside the third-floor office. He doesn't even stumble.

Getting ready to go back into the cold, Payanzo has trouble fitting Dylan's mop of unruly black hair into his blue knit hat. She and Dylan's father, Conrad T. Yazzie, frequently fight over whether his hair should be cut. Yazzie wants to braid it when it gets longer.

Motherhood, with all its complications and considerations, was the last thing on the minds of both Ocon and Payanzo back in high school when college meant independence.

Harvard Bound

Admission to Harvard was a dream-come-true for Ocon, a Lakewood, Calif., native who dreamed of attending Harvard Law School even before junior high.