We were waiting to be served at a restaurant where they had a beautful front yard, and several children had already figured out the fertile jungle gym potential of that open space. Ian and Daniel quickly ran out to join all the other kids - most of whom were older than them -and proceeded to tackle them, to the other children's amusement. In a short time, Ian was engrossed in a game of hide and seek where he was "it". However ,the kids quickly disappeared - no doubt because their entrees had arrived and they were joining their families inside the restaurant, but Ian very dutifully paced up and down the entire yard, peering out into the parking lot, to see if he could "find" his hide-and-seek colleagues. (Of course, I saw a number of them later eating supper inside the restaurant.) I kept telling him that they probably either started eating or had gone home with their families, but he was convinced that they would have dutifully informed him of that fact if it were true.

Finally, after about seven minutes, he yelled out, slowly and shrilly, into a depopulated parking lot "I GIVE UP!!!!" and sat down on the stone steps to accentuate the point.

Until he yelled that, I didn't even realize that he was looking for the other children. I had fogotten that Mr. Dershowitz, as I sometimes call him, had such a proper sense of order and protocol that it never would have occurred to him that most children just run off for supper when the time comes. I was only sorry Piaget wasn't around to take notes...

(August 16, 2009)