whatever, I am - in actual fact - a completely anarchic maverick who is living life on her own zany terms!" You know - that sort of a chuckle.

This is what parents do. They attribute the characteristics displayed by their children to themselves. It's basically a way of commentating on your own personality in a way that would ordinarily be deemed psychotically narcissistic and socially unacceptable.

The big joke is that kids under one year old all share pretty similar characteristics anyway: all the spoon-throwing and gurning and shrieking and pissing themselves is not the result of genetic inheritance, it's just what babies do. I looked back at my 11-month-old. She was vomiting up the business section in a horrible, greyish pulp.

"That's my girl," I thought.