We were walking through the throngs of shopping mall patrons, side-stepping wayward jaywalkers like a crazed penguin computer game, trying not to bump into daydreaming children and their dazed parents.
From behind us, a toddler was bawling her brains out, desperate screams piercing through the mall muzak. Seconds later, we noticed the mother walking briskly past us, her right hand firmly clasped around her child. The kid must have been around three years old, thrashing around in her mother’s arms as she was being carried like an unruly roll of carpet, limbs a-flailing in time with her wailing.
“Parenting is hard,” Kat noted as we saw the mother rush through the crowd. The mother was struggling to keep her game face on, grimly marching forward as onlookers stared at her carrying her banshee child through the mall.
“Humaning is hard,” I said.
“Amen.”