I heard screaming upon entering Paul’s this morning with Shef on my hip.

“Mama,” he whispered and locked his legs firmly around my waist. I steeled myself for a tricky extraction. It’s always worse when someone else is crying when we arrive.

A harried Dad passed us on his way out.

“Yes,” he said, when I looked at him sympathetically, “I’m abandoning my child.”

“I feel the same way,” I replied.

By the time we walked the twenty feet from the door to the “dining room,” however, the screaming had stopped, and I couldn’t even tell which Little Angel had been making such a fuss.

This fact encouraged me as substitute teacher Marion pried Shef, kicking and screaming, from my body, and I made a beeline for the exit. Maybe, I thought, as Shef yelled desperately for my return, and heartbreaking tears streamed from his scrunched up eyes, if Harried Dad’s kid recovered so quickly, mine would too.

Sure enough, when I snuck back in five minutes later to leave a pacifier in his cubby, he was chatting away about pancakes, and (I hope) looking forward to the rest of his day.