“Mama, what happened to the wheel?”, Marcus asked.

“What wheel?”

“The wheel at the park. The park with the fire truck. The wheel is missing!”

“The wheel on the fire truck?”

“No, Mom, the wheel that you climb on and go around and around in circles and I fell off sometimes.”

“Oh, that wheel. They replaced it with the plastic playground for babies.”

“But… that’s not _fair_. I liked the wheel. Why did they take the wheel away?”

“Because they probably thought it was too dangerous.”

“But I only fell off sometimes! And it was fun!”

“Marcus, sometimes people are so scared of kids getting hurt that they take fun things away.”

“Mom, can we build a park in our backyard with a wheel in it?”

This wouldn’t be such a completely bizarre conversation if we hadn’t visited the park in question _yesterday_, and he started up at the top of his lungs frantic about the absence of the merry-go-round _today_. I guess it took awhile to register.