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Before
I’d often wondered how deep the water in that fountain was. The fountain in question sits as the centerpiece of an outdoor shopping-center courtyard designed to feel like an Italian piazza. The water pours from a ball at the top into a giant bowl that then spills over into a pool formed by a short wall surrounding the fountain.
Well, now I know. The water at the bottom is just deep enough to cover Squirts from head to toe if he kneels down on all fours.
I’ve been out of town this week away from my home, my wife and my son. Shortly before I left I was alone with Squirts for a few minutes watching TV. I think it was a new cartoon called “Kick Buttowski.” Can you believe that’s the name of a kid’s cartoon?
Anyway, that seemed like a good moment to talk to Squirts about my being gone for a few days. The conversation went something like this.
Around the time Squirts turned three, he moved from one class at his day care into another one. It was a traumatic experience for all three of us. And it was no short-term trauma either. It was the kind of trauma that lasted almost every day for the majority of the next year-and-a-half and followed us to his next two classes.
After that move, the drop-off routine involved some level of whining, crying, clinging, wailing or whimpering. Every day. For. One. Year. And. A. Half.
