As if we needed the remotest grain of proof that my 9-year-old daughter is far cooler and more savvy than I, she has taken to saying, “No, seriously,” with just as much inflection and standoffishness as the coolest of all cool teenagers. (She tries to “Whatever” me, too, but she ruins it with giggling, because I thump her on the head with the nearest box top, newspaper or similar painless-but-loud object whenever she does it to me.)

And she pronounces it as though she’s already a Texting Master: “srsly.” It’s a little bit hilarious, and would be more so if it didn’t remind me just how close she actually is to things like texting and teenagerhood and driving and dating…

I think I need to go lie down.