It’s not often that I pat myself on the back for having made an unquestionably smart parenting decision. If anything, I’m usually wallowing in a murky swirl of What Ifs — besieged by doubt, flinching in the face of motherhood’s crushingly wonderful burden, second-guessing my capabilities.

But today, my friends, I took my son to the orthopedics center to have his cast removed. AND I TOTALLY REMEMBERED TO BRING A SECOND SHOE.

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Well, duh, you might be thinking. What, you were going to make him limp back out to the car with one naked, shamefully grungy little exposed foot? Uh, yeah, chances were pretty fucking good. I can’t BELIEVE I remembered the shoe. PRO MOVE RIGHT HERE. JUST LOOK AT THAT FULLY CLOTHED CHILD.

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Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bask in this unfamiliar glow of parental proficiency for as long as it lasts, which ought to be a good five minutes or so.

As a kid, I can remember this time when everything I’d heard about nuclear war sort of coalesced into this one awful thought: it could happen at any time. We learned about duck and cover in school, and the take-home message for me at the time was that an attack could come with absolutely no warning.

Of course, it never did, and schools have mostly gone on to prepare for other disasters. Like, for instance, a mentally unstable person stalking the hallways with the intent of hurting children.

I’m thinking ahead to talking to Riley about what happened in Connecticut this morning, and feeling heavy about his world where kids have to worry about the reality — not the vague theoretical possibility, but the reality — of gunmen stepping into their classrooms to open fire, and god damn, aren’t we just a screwed-up species sometimes.

Thinking of you, too, my Internet friends, and your families, and the families and children in Newtown. What a terrible day.

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