The law is a bit imprecise on these things, but by my reckoning, at the moment the clock struck midnight and rolled into this new morning, Devon and I (both sound asleep) found ourselves in territory we’d not occupied in a over two decades: liberated from being legally responsible for anyone but each other.

Yes – our youngest, the inimitable Jeremiah Cohn, has turned 18, the age of legal majority. There are some downsides to this transition*, but on the whole we’re mighty pleased. Of course we’re also very proud of him – he’s grown into quite a remarkable, compassionate and interesting young man with a bevy of good friends and improbable obsessions.

I’ll spare him the embarrassment of going on at length about those obsessions, and will instead point you at his website over at jeremiahcohn.com. But of course, I do have to include a couple of vaguely embarrassing photos:

In the DMV parking lot, psyching himself up for the drivers test (he passed on the first try).

It doesn’t count as cooking unless it requires leather gloves and safety glasses

The best way to test your favorite new knife is…not that way.

* Did you know that, up until your kids turn eighteen, you can legally change their names to anything you want, and they can’t do a damned thing about it? It turns out that simply making this offhand observation at the dinner table is an excellent way to refocus conversations with inattentive children.