As a parent, you measure the milestones of your child with those that you yourself experienced growing up: losing teeth, first day at school, first time at summer camp, and all those other markers. And up until now, those parallels have been rather theoretical for me. I don't have a lot of clear memories from my childhood. Nothing traumatic, just being an only child with rather uncommunicative parents there wasn't much repetition to build those memories.

But now Zoe is 16 -- and that's an age I actually remember being rather vividly.  And I don't just remember being 16, I still recall what and how I thought at 16 -- my conflicts and my complexity. And the things I did at 16, well, I just hope...

It's also a way of viewing how things have changed in the world. Zoe's 2008 is my 1979. The big struggles for my 1979 world was disco versus rock, and US versus USSR. You know you're reached middle age when events you read in the newspaper get written into the textbooks.

So I'm pretty amused by this, and the way it's making me feel -- reflective, a bit weirded out. Enjoy the pic.