In just a few days we will all be faced with the annual challenge: learning to write a new year date on all our important papers, letters, checks.

'07 will become '08.

I don't know about you, but my neurons are still not comfortable with whole "0" thing. Every now and again I have a brain fritz (as opposed to an ice induced brain freeze) and find myself writing 1996 or 1987 or some other decade-deleting date. Its as if occasionally my mind simply cannot fathom the incredibly swift passage of time that marks the span of our lifetimes.

But there's something even more difficult than having to wrap our minds around yet another New Year. It is coming to terms with how the passage of time affects those we love. Every parent here can testify how much of a difference one year makes on a child.

In o…