Sam and Cj have a life so different from that my first lot of kids lived as children. Of course, having a teen mom gives a whole different flavor to childhood from the one a kid gets when mother is closer to a grandmotherly age ... or even great-grandmotherly -- ack! ... and though both can be tasty, there's no denying they're not the same. (I tended to burn the cookies more often when I was younger, for one thing, and relied way too much on "Shake and Bake".)

It's not just water that's flowed under my bridge in the thirty-two-year gap between my second and my third child, though there's been no lack of that, but also miles and degrees of both latitude and longitude. My little ones have almost a mirror image of the childhood their big brother and sister had: old mom vs. young mom; very connected couple of parents vs. single parent; southern hemisphere vs. northern hemisphere; back of beyond vs. city living; "Third World" vs. "First World"; shorts and tank tops and flip flops vs. jackets and sweaters and boots; predominately white population vs. 90% black ... and so many more opposites abounding than I can think of since I rarely notice what's different anymore.

Yes, other than the fact that I'm mother to all four of my kids, they might as well be growing up on different planets.

How different a person I am than the teenager facing parenthood for the first time is hard for me to gauge. In so many ways I feel exactly the same as my eighteen-year-old self, and in my mind's eye I even look much like that person so much younger. (How kind that mind's eye can be!)

Reconnecting with my best friend from high school after more than 35 years without contact has been a seamless process, and although there's a lot of catching up to do, we've needed no reintroduction.

At the same time, however, although I do recognize the person I was long ago, there's much about me now that would be impossible for that Sandra to begin to understand.

I often wonder which kids got the better deal, not that it's up for negotiation. Life is what it is for all of us, and thankfully it's pretty darned good. All I need do is turn on the news to be reminded that we are amazingly lucky to have the path our feet have found blessed with bounty, relative safety and health.

Know what set me off on this tangent this morning? Sam was sitting in my office with me before we started getting ready for school. The door was closed because the aircon was on and keeping the room closed goes hand in hand with keeping it cool, although normally it's open at least a crack so I can keep tabs on what's happening outside in the rest of the house. He decided I was terribly boring, so he wanted to go out. He couldn't.

This in one of only two rooms in my house with a doorknob -- the other is the downstairs bathroom door that's so badly warped from the humidity that it hasn't closed all the way since right after we moved in.

Long and short? A doorknob is a conundrum ... Sam had no concept of turn-and-pull. Yep. My kid is pushing five and just had his first experience with a doorknob!

His lack of doorknob knowledge doesn't result Mom being a geezer, but it sure speaks to how different his world is from that of his older siblings.