Having two children less than two years apart teaches a person a lot about parenting. The problem is that the “students” will be too bone tired for the first six years to remember a single bit of it.

Nonetheless, the one thing I do recall learning is that I’m not the only one out there with such a span between my children.

For some, that new baby when the other baby was still a baby was a surprise. A happy surprise, no doubt, but a surprise nonetheless.

Close. For others, it was a conscious decision painstakingly choreographed. There is much talk of the children being “close” to one another (to which I’ve always suspected they ACTUALLY meant “close enough to poke an eye out.”)

There are also many in the “get it over with all at once” camp. As if childrearing were really just an elaborate hazing ritual or rite of (painful) passage between graduation from high school or college and that sporty little roadster you’ve got your eye on for your upcoming mid-life crisis.

The truth is that when my firstborn was very small, the fear that I wouldn’t have another child who was as wonderful as he kept me from trying. When he turned one and we hadn’t managed to break or harm him in any discernible way, we felt confident enough to want even more of these tiny humans around. They are so intoxicating, these small people dependent on us for every bit of their survival. What’s not to love about that? So you go for it and have another one!

Then for many years after you swear that your children will never, ever GROW UP.

Then they do.

Age Gauge. The next time you’re at a social gathering where there are many families with youngsters in attendance, try to decipher how old the children are solely by looking at their parents.

The parents of infants are particularly easy to spot. They are the ones who have not showered in two weeks because they have not yet figured out how to simultaneously shower and monitor the baby’s every breath. Toddler parents are marginally cleaner and somewhat more rested. They also have amazing upper body strength at this stage. (The parents - not the toddlers). Feeding a child with more waving limbs than an octopus and wrangling reluctant 2-year-olds into the bathtub is not for the weak limbed.

You can identify the parents of 3-year-olds by the shell-shocked, glazed terror in their eyes. They have been lulled into a false sense of accomplishment over having survived the “terrible twos.” Little did they know that “the threes” make the “terrible twos” seem like a year with Ghandi. Two year olds are downright levelheaded when stacked up against a three year old’s all-powerful combination of iron will and complete unreasonableness.

Parents of four to eight year olds are easy to spot. They begin virtually every sentence with the word “because.”

Now, if you see a parent who is perpetually choked up, teary eyed over the nostalgia of a macaroni studded finger painting and gushing about every moment of parenthood to date - even the sleepless nights and toddler tantrums - that person’s child is almost ten.

An inevitable corner is on the horizon. The baby is undeniably a kid. Moreover, a “big kid” at that. Soon will come an entirely new experience - a whole LIFE - apart from his parents.

I know because my son is “almost ten” and I feel “almost” ready to deal with that.

I mean it when I say “almost.”

Heart. I’m sorry but my heart just KNOWS that we brought him home from the hospital last week. I can clearly recall that tiny little pink ball of a person all cloudy eyed and unable to hold up his own head. How can it be almost ten years ago that we drove 25 miles an hour all the way home for fear he’d just snap clean in half if we had to brake suddenly? Wasn’t it just last week that his entire life’s goal seemed to be digging to China in his sandbox? Where did THAT kid go?

Oh, that’s right, he’s “almost ten.” And because of my insistence on having my children “close” together – his baby sister is no “baby” and she’s right behind him.

Thus, there are no sippy cups here. No diaper bags. No cheerios in my pockets anymore. My childrens’ world is ever widening.

So the parent with the misty eyes and the crazy swings between excitement for her child’s future in the world and nostalgia for the days when his world was only as big as her arms looks eerily familiar.

Her baby is “almost ten” and she’s “almost ready” to admit that.

Almost.