Occupation: Pediatric Urologist
Husband: Patrick
Children: Pierre, 6, Emmett, 3
Hobbies: Reading, baking, and exercising

Between time in the operating room, family pizza nights, and bedtime stories, Dr. Caitlin Coco shares how she and her husband, Patrick, keep life flexible, fun, and full of love in Baton Rouge. Surrounded by a large, close-knit family, Caitlin opens up about balancing a demanding medical career with motherhood and the parenting lessons she has learned along the way.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT RAISING YOUR BOYS IN BATON ROUGE
CAITLIN COCO: The community. I think there’s something really special about the Baton Rouge community. We also have a really large family unit here. My husband’s the baby of 11 kids, so we have a really big family. The vast majority of them are located in the area. They have lots of little cousins, and it’s just a really fun dynamic.

HOW DO YOU BALANCE YOUR CAREER WITH FAMILY TIME?
CAITLIN: We are flexible. We use the phrase “flexible spaghetti” a lot in my family. We like to be like flexible noodles that are cooked rather than the ones that aren’t cooked yet. We make it work. I’ve definitely set my family as a priority at work, and we have certain boundaries and things at work that we try to maintain, and my kids also understand too. We make it a big deal at home. Like, Mommy is helping people, and so this is why Mommy is doing this or that. We involve them a lot, so they understand what’s going on. And then, I have a superstar husband who picks up more things than I could ever imagine in terms of slack, and he’s really the reason that I’m able to do both.

WHAT’S A TYPICAL WEEKEND LIKE FOR THE COCO FAMILY?
CAITLIN: Friday night is usually movie and pizza night. We get pizza dough from Trader Joe’s, and we make the kids a pizza. Then we pick out a movie. We’ll either do some of the classics and then sometimes we’ll do an animated film. If we’re reading a book, we’ll do a movie based on that. During the school year, my six year old will have activities. So sometimes we have Saturday morning baseball, or we’ll do basketball or soccer. He likes to do a lot of different activities. Saturday is just our social day, I guess, is what I would call it. We’ll have what we call Coco Brother dinners where my husband, his two youngest brothers and their wives, and all of our kids get together. We rotate whose house that’s at, so that’s really fun. On Sunday, we usually go to Mass.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TRADITIONS THE BOYS LOOK FORWARD TO?
CAITLIN: At bedtime, we always have stories, thankfuls, and prayers. I would say they look forward probably to stories the most, but it is something that we do basically every night. We’ll do bigger breakfasts on the weekends. So on Saturday mornings, we might do pancakes, and everybody gets involved. My three year old will mix the pancake batter, and then my six year old actually has started using the stove with supervision. He’s getting there, but right now it’s quesadillas and pancakes with some help. It’s a lot of fun, and everybody’s in the kitchen.

WHAT’S ONE PARENTING LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED THAT YOU WISH YOU HAD KNOWN SOONER?
CAITLIN: One parenting lesson that I wish I would have learned sooner. Every kid is different. You think you figure it out and that you have it down, but every kid is different. And I think that learning your child is a process. I don’t think it happens all in one night. I guess be adaptable, and keep learning about them. It’s fun too. Because, like, their little personalities are constantly changing and evolving. So I guess being adaptable would be my lesson.

HAVE YOUR BOYS EVER SHOWN CURIOSITY ABOUT YOUR JOB?
CAITLIN: My older son much more so than my younger son. He knows what Mommy does. Mommy operates on people. She does surgeries. Funnily enough, whenever we would ask him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He said, “I think I want to be a drama surgeon.” I was like, “Do you mean a trauma surgeon?” Whenever I am looking up things, he always wants to know what it is. What I usually tell my kids in terms of what I do is that I’m kind of like a plumber. Basically, anything that water moves through in your body, I can unblock or fix. So they know Mommy works on kidneys, and we’ve talked about what those are. We’ve always talked about it since they were really little.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR PROUDEST “MOM MOMENT” SO FAR?
CAITLIN: When my older son started school, I had another mom come and tell me that her daughter enjoyed playing with him, and that he was one of the only boys that she enjoyed playing with because he was kind. As a mom, you want great things for your kids, but most of all, we just want them to be good humans. Getting that feedback was a really proud moment for me, to know that we’re doing something right.

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR OTHER PARENTS?
CAITLIN: A lot of parents are like, Am I doing enough? Is this enough? What I always tell parents who seem worried or concerned about that is if you care enough to wonder if you’re doing enough, you’re doing enough. You’re giving all the love that the babies need, and that’s evidence of it is that you care enough to wonder that question.

Rapid Fire Questions
Favorite date night…eat dinner, come back, and usually the kids will be in bed, and we’ll watch a movie.

One word that best describes your family…loving.

Favorite movie…Edward Scissorhands.

Favorite food…Crawfish cakes, made by my husband.

Hidden talent…painting.