It's the most irksome and indubitable law of the universe: Fate favors The Planner. The gal with the foresight to research preschools while she's pregnant. Or to begin funding a 529 plan before her child can even gurgle the word "college." Or to know what the frack she's serving her family for dinner before she gets home from work at 6:22 p.m. and announces, yet again, "Umm ... exciting news, everyone: It's soup night! Grab your favorite can!"

In life — and in parenting, especially — she who wings it regrets it. But that's exactly how I wound up having my kids seven years apart. When the other moms in my baby group were plotting their second and even third children, citing anecdotes about brotherly bonding and quoting stats about the effect of sibling spacing on each child's health, intelligence, and self-esteem ... I was busy trying to distinguish Boudreaux's Butt Paste from Motherlove Nipple Cream, clawing my way out from beneath daily heaps of burp cloths and wondering if I'd accidentally stuffed my once-vigorous mojo into the Diaper Genie during a bleary-eyed late-night changing.

By the time I emerged from the disorienting fog of baby care into the dense haze of toddler care and then, well, into the light but still unpleasantly wet mist of 1st-grader care (okay, I'm easily overwhelmed), it was too late to have children who would ever want to ride the same rides at Disneyland much less be able to attend the same school.