"He Has an Irrational Fear of Pinecones"

Before I'd even met the two-year-old boy, his mother told me, "He has an irrational fear of pinecones." This was important for me to know because there was a pine tree on the playground. And she knew it. I quickly considered how I should respond if she asked me to remove pinecones from the playground. Thankfully, that's not where she was going. Instead, she said, "I wonder how he's going to react…