But she never even got to hit the ground before I was calling her about one of the toughest child-custody cases she will ever have to deal with.

The honeymoon ends right after the wedding vows when you run an agency that is responsible for the welfare of thousands of children in dysfunctional families.

A successful DHS intervention is one where an abused child or dysfunctional family is no worse off after DHS intervenes than they had been before.

Tilly Ayala would argue that DHS intervention has been anything but successful in the life of her family. She has been making that argument on a picket line outside DHS offices at 1515 Arch St. for almost three years.

She's been making it inside DHS since last year, when the interim commissioner, Dr. Arthur Evans, invited her to be part of a DHS citizens advisory board.

She made that argument with me last week outside a courtroom where she later tried to convince a Family Court judge that DHS was wrong to seek termination of her parental rights to her 4-year-old son.

"I think our job is to keep children with their parents if we can," Ambrose said. "But I don't know the details of this case. I'm anxious to review it."

She may have even more anxiety after reviewing it. The case started in June 2004 with Ayala and Timothy Pingue enjoying a day at the beach in Wildwood Crest with their daughter, then 3, and 6-month-old son.

Pingue, in an apparent prank, put the infant in a bag and offered it for sale to several people. One of them called police.

Ayala and Pingue were charged with child endangerment and their children were taken into custody pending the outcome of their trial.

Police always suspected that it was a prank on Pingue's part. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.

But the two children remain in foster care. DHS, which has jurisdiction in his case, placed Ayala's son with Pingue's parents. The couple has since split up.

"I have done everything they asked me to do," Ayala told me. "I've got a house, I've got a job. I went to parenting classes. I've never been in trouble. There has never been an abuse or neglect charge against me."

Even more confounding is the fact that Pingue, who caused the police to intervene, has unfettered access to his son while Ayala is limited to supervised visits.

"We are not together," Ayala said of Pingue.

"He did not respect my wishes as a parent. I told him not to put our baby in that bag. He thought it was funny."

The crowning irony is that DHS is now petitioning the court to place the child permanently with Pingue's family partly because a bonding evaluation showed the child has a greater bond with them than with Ayala.

"He's been with them for four years," Ayala said "Of course he has a closer bond with them. I only see him for a limited time. But he knows I'm his mother."

"Bonding is only one factor," Ambrose said. "I don't know all the issues here. But our policy is to keep families together if we can. That's the law."

But DHS is under tremendous pressure to remove children from families where there have been charges of abuse or neglect because a number of children died or were injured after DHS was reluctant to remove them from families or institutions DHS had placed them with.

"People do get gun-shy," Ambrose said. "You get a little more protective when there's been a tragedy. I hope that won't affect my decisions."

The DHS commissioner may occupy the hottest seat in city government. We've seen a half- dozen of them come and go suddenly in the last 10 years.

But "I'm very excited about this opportunity," Ambrose enthused. "I can't wait to get started."

I couldn't wait for her to get started either. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith