The licensing bureau

It started out poorly, as far as mornings go, but Simone persevered. She had errands to go, places to visit and by gosh, she was going to cross everything off her list. Dressed to kill, because if you keep the good China for the "special" visitors, you'll end up with a life full of regrets, she headed off to the mall to renew the cars' license plate stickers.

Baby B was in fine spirits. These days fine spirits mean that he was spitting up a storm and watching the drool dangle from his chin. Fortunately, he was sitting in his car seat at the time so Simone was not covered in the fluid this time. They arrived at the mall and Simone parked relatively close to the doors to the licensing bureau. Baby B objected almost immediately: they were going in the "wrong" doors. The French daycare centre is through another set of doors and he was bound and determined to head over there.

Undaunted, Simone plodded along, dragging the reticent toddler along.

"Up!" he commanded when it became obvious that Simone meant to avoid the French daycare centre.

Perhaps Simone should have listened.

Baby B proceeded to scream louder as they headed into the mall. Combined with the echo factor, he garnered a fair bit of attention from passersby. He then inched further and further away from Simone. While she was dressed to kill, Simone was not dress for search and rescue - never mind a high speed foot chase in the mall. Baby B bounded off, still screaming, toward the bowling alley. "Baw, baw!" he shouted, meaning, no doubt, "Ball." Simone was unimpressed. Toddling on her heels, she finally managed to reach the runaway.

"Baw! Baw!" he shouted.

Simone grabbed the boy's juice cup and stuffed it in her coat pocket then tossed the screaming, kicking child over her shoulder. Managing to stay upright, she headed back toward the French daycare centre. The child screamed through the entire transaction - fortunately, there were only a handful of people in the licensing bureau, most of them staff.

"It's kind of funny to watch you," remarked one staffer to Simone. "Especially when you have your own."

Simone made a face. Funny loses its flavour very quickly when the kid screaming and making a fuss is your own...