Peace

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Watching Squirts throw a ball – or anything else – is like watching a physics experiment in kinetic energy. The act of launching the object from his hand involves some aspect of every visible part of his body. As his right hand pulls back with the ball, his left arm juts out with a fist curled under. His tongue sticks out in one direction or another, often giving away the final destination of the object in question. His eyes either squeeze shut or bulge open. And at the last moment his left leg lifts and swings in an awkward arch in an attempt to make the ball fly as far as possible.

If he could raise both legs at the same time, he’d probably give it a shot.

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As I enter the door to pick up Squirts from “school,” I find him playing in the large gathering room with other kids. He looks up, smiles and runs to give me a hug. All smiles and laughs today.

Before we head home, I say we should check his folder in his class for any important notes from his teacher. As sure as we forget to check the all-important folder, we’ll miss the message telling us every child should bring a lunch or our enrollment fee is doubling.

Squirts stops smiling.

“OK,” he says, “but don’t look at the board.”

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You know what a super ball is, right? It’s one of those small rubber balls you get for a quarter out of a vending machine at the grocery store. When thrown, it ricochets from the wall, the floor, to the wall, to the ceiling and back again at speeds and angles that seem to defy the laws of physics.

At times, if you stopped and watched Squirts from the far end of a large room, you might think he was trying to catch one of those super balls just after being bounced against a wall. But as you got closer, you would probably begin to wonder what happened to the ball? Then, as you got even closer, you would realize, there is no ball. That’s just Squirts-in-motion!

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Bear