Mei Xiang couldn’t have timed it better if she tried. Just as Washingtonians were preparing to wish our final goodbyes to our beloved Butterstick, Tai Shan’s mom quite surprisingly went into heat yesterday afternoon, and her and ‘Stick’s dad, Tian Tian, wasted little time getting to work, as seen above.

We don’t really need to go into the sad details of Butterstick’s imminent departure (sniffle), but there’d hardly be a better present than a new cub for his mom and dad — who are scheduled to leave later this year — to leave us before they hit the road back to China. One would assume that if they have a cub, an extension would probably be granted by the Chinese government.

If you hadn’t learned from every year we go through this, female pandas usually only spend about 48 hours in heat each spring — though this is the second straight year that Mei Xiang has experienced an early sexual revolution.