The three of us had an amazing Sunday. We met Ava's school friend at Riverside Park and I immediately noticed the kayers out in the Hudson and my heart lept. As a teenager who gazed out from in front of the 78th Street Boat Basin for years, pondering the mysteries of my miserable adolescence, I never once actually got out on the water. Ava and her friend Valeria were begging me to take them out. The only requirement for kids is that they can swim and Chet can't. He was learning well in California but for the last few weeks here at the Columbia pool he has shrieked uncontrollably. He even made himself sick enough to puke at school on the day of a lesson. He loves the water and is terrified of it. "I don't want to drown, daddy," he says. At least three times in his five years he's fallen into water deeper than him and freaked. Once in the Pacific at a birthday party. Phaedre nor the nanny was looking and he, at three, ran right in and gulped water. Another time at his godparents' covered pool he followed an old tennis ball that he thrown on the tarp covering the pool and slipped right in. I fished him out just as his head went underwater. At that same house he was in the hot tub (he loves water that he can stand in) and if he sat around the edge of the hot tub he was half out of the water. Well he jumped into the middle and I saw him completely underwater and yanked him out.

His sister is never more at home than when she's in the water. She's not the most athletic girl on land but in the water she's a mermaid. When she was two and change in St. Tropez she wandered off toward the rocks by the edge of the sea. I hung back enough to let her feel a bit independent, stepping behind her quietly. She toddled up on a rock and slipped in and I caught her hand before she even got her hair wet.

My dream is to for the three of us to surf Hawaii or Mexico together. I think of happiness I would die.

But today in the Hudson I took Ava's friend and then Ava out on the river, just for a quick spin but I was tempted to keep paddling to New Jersey. What a lovely adventure that would be.

Then at home I was shooting for their 8 o'clock bedtime but baths, dinner and Ava's hair kept us up almost till nine. Chet said, apropos of noting, "You know what my big wish is, daddy?"

"No, what?"

"That you and mommy would get un-divorced."

I asked him if even remembers us ever married. He was 8 months old when she left. He says he remembers the big orange house we lived in but I'm not sure if believe him. Earlier in the day he had said, "Raise your hand if you are differently divorced," and he raised my hand. I think Phaedre has told him that our divorce is different in that we're still friendly.

He's the most incredible and most handsome and charming five-year-old on the planet.