I'm still shaking.

Yesterday, I almost hit a little boy with my car. He darted out between two parked cars on a narrow residential road -- without looking. I swerved and he swerved, and I missed him by inches.

I stopped my car, got out and asked him to get his mom or dad. He was playing in the front yard with his twin sister and another girl on the street, but his folks were inside.

Dad came outside, and I'm sure he was a bit shell-shocked as I sternly recounted how I almost hit his son and urged everyone to be more careful. He gave me a look like "Who the heck is this crazy lady and why is she yelling at me?"

I threw just a big enough fit that I don't think the little boy will forget me anytime soon. And I hope it will make him think twice before he darts out into the street again.

When things like this happen (not too often, thankfully), I always think about Jane Hamilton's "A Map of the World," the poignant 1994 novel about a Wisconsin women named Alice who was babysitting a neighbor's young child. When Alice was distracted for just a few minutes the 2-year-old drowned in a pond on her dairy farm.

The incident touched off a series of events that changed everything about the woman's life, her marriage and her friend's life and family.

For a split second on Thursday, a little boy's life, his family's life and mine almost changed, too.

Today's news about the closing of the Center for Creative Play in Regent Square on March 31 spread like lightening through the parent community. One parent described it like "a death in the family."

It's a shame the center hadn't reached out earlier to the region for help to keep the doors open. It surely will leave a gaping hole in the community for all children.