Are You My Mother?

I must always laugh when children in public areas get distracted and mistake strangers for their own parents or older siblings, taking hold of their hands absent-mindedly, only to look up and realize with frozen horror that they have been tagging along with a completely strange and unfamiliar face that is not Mommy.

I was at the library today, glancing around and looking at DVDs in the children's section, just to see what was there. I skimmed down the rows at about eye level, and meanwhile passed a little German boy of about seven or eight, who was also skimming at his respective eye level while his mother and brother were browsing nearby. He plucked a movie off the shelf and began jabbering an explanation of it just as I stood behind him looking over his head. He was still conversationally reading the back of the box out loud to me when he turned to show it to me, and looked up.

I smiled broadly and said, "Sorry, what was that?"

He blinked and quickly glanced around after a stunned moment. Then he looked back up, grinned sheepishly, and quietly mumbled, ".. Oh.* " I grinned back. He turned around with a little blush and stuck the movie back onto the shelf.

I found what I wanted, checked out my books, and left the library still grinning.

*(For those of you who speak German, it was, ".. Achso." Which just amuses me tenfold.)