I Am Mommy, Remixed

I'm not sure what it is about me that consistently draws the question: "So, is this your first baby?"

Maybe it's the way I waddle, or my fatigued replies to any social invitation. I attribute both to being in my late-30s and working full-time at a stressful job. Others seem to think that it must be because this pregnancy business is all new to me.

Hardly. I gave birth to a baby boy nearly 16 years ago. Weighing in at 9 pounds at his first breath, Gabe is now taller than 6 feet and talks a lot about getting his driver's license. He already drives tractors at my parents' farm, he has a paying job as the nursery attendant at our church, and he is in charge of picking up dog doo in the yard and mopping the kitchen floor.

Somewhere between my first nursing bra and this day, I raised a boy into a relative man. This is explored and charted territory.

Yet having a second baby a decade and a half later indeed can feel like the first time all over again. I am a different person, physically and mentally. I am in a different marriage, different career level, different state of residence.

In some ways, it's like mooning the parole board. I'm so close to the end of my sentencing as a legally responsible parent, and I go and commit an act that is going to keep me behind crib bars for even longer.

In other ways, it's reassuring. I'm having another boy, so I already know that carrying him around like a duffel bag by his overalls suspenders isn't going to do any long-term damage.

Still, the age gap raises a few eyebrows. When I get the "is this your first" question, my answers range between a simple "no" and "well, sort of" -- peppered occasionally with a tart, "It's the first as far as you know, since you don't know me well enough to realize I already have a teenager but feel comfortable asking me such questions anyway."

Pleasantly, some resulting conversations introduce me to other mothers whose children are far apart in age. These women seem no worse for the wear.

Other mothers are intent to get all parts of certain stages of child-rearing done at once. When diapers are done, diapers are done.

Even in families who add children in typical two- to three-year increments, if they add enough they can have both dynamics: a large gap between the oldest and the youngest as well as close age-mates. I am the fourth of five siblings. To my parents, this meant they were in "adolescent hell" for 20 years.

Gabe has desired a sibling since he was about 4 years old, just about the time a kid starts noticing relationships and figuring out differences among friends. He even told me that I could probably find a baby at our farm, "because that's where things grow." I seriously considered digging out my old Cabbage Patch doll from storage at that point.

He had to wait nearly 16 years to get one, but he's not all that fazed by it. My dad and his younger brother are about that far apart in age, and Gabe sees firsthand the benefits of their adult sibling life, like when they borrow tools. He doesn't know about the time little Johnny punched big Jim square in the nose because he was barricading his path to the bathroom, but I'm sure my boys will come up with their own ways of pestering each other.