Moment 1:

Tonight Dan, Kate and I piled into the car for an impromptu trip to Barnes and Noble, or as Kate refers to it "choo choo train." She calls it this because in the children's section, there is indeed a model train table where children can play. On any given day you will see lots of moms chilling out with lattes and a book or two while the kids play with the train. I have no idea how many books this actually sells, but it gives me an undying love for Barnes and Noble. There is even a Starbucks inside. Go massive corporations!

Tonight we just had an hour or so to kill before Kate's bed time, so we took off and left the house while having a conversation that was absorbing enough that we didn't really do any of our usual parental pre-flight safety checks. We did make it out the door with Kate's monkey, and the pacifier, and her sippy cup. What we didn't have was a diaper bag. Or a diaper. Or so much as a single diaper wipe.

I think all you veteran parents out there know what happened next.

But maybe someone here is unfamiliar with how Murphy's Law works when applied to parenting. Or maybe y'all are just smarter than us and have therefore never let this happen. Either way, in case you're in the dark at this point, let me spell it out for you: If you leave the house without a diaper or a wipe and go to a public location your child will (not "might" -- definitely WILL) have the world's nastiest dirty diaper within five minutes of your arrival at the aforementioned public place.

I'm not going to tell you the gory details of how I totally failed to handle this little crisis. Suffice it to say that was the shortest trip I have ever paid to a bookstore, and we left with Kate announcing to everyone we passed "No panties! No panties!" I hope no one understood her, and I feel I owe a personal apology to whomever had to empty the trash can in the ladies' room.

Moment 2:

Lately, Kate is getting very aware of our surroundings. This is good in that when I say things to her like "Go into your bedroom and get me your shoes," she does it. It's complicated in that when we drive places, she starts trying to guess what we're going to do based on what part of town we're in. Tonight, we exited the Interstate onto Louisiana Boulevard, which happens to be the location of three places we go a lot as a family: McAlister's (Where Kate always has macaroni and cheese) adjacent to the water fountain at ABQ Uptown (where Kate runs around and screams "Water! Water!") and across the street from Barnes and Noble (alternate name of "choo choo train" established earlier in this post.)

We were not even off the exit yet, and the following comments came from the back seat:

Kate: Choo choo train!
Dan: What is she saying?
Me: Oh, just wait.
Kate: Cheese! Mac and Cheese! Water! Water!
Me: Yeah. We can't drive over here any more.

Moment 3:

I wrote Kate's newlsetter late this month and so it reflects what was going on during the actual 23rd month of her life regarding her fixation on these awful, smelly pink shoes she has. What I didn't write about, because it's a development of the last few days, is that she has actually made room in her life for another pair of shoes. They are a pair of pink plaid ballet flats, and she loves them mostly because they are just a little bit too big for her feet, and if she stands just so and works really hard at it, she can put them on herself. To distinguish these shoes from the stinky ones, which she calls "pink shoes," I taught her the phrase "plaid shoes." After all, that is what they are. Plaid. Plaid, the word that starts with a P and ends in a D. The word that does not sound at all like an expletive. Right? Except that this morning, when Kate started asking for these shoes, the word that came out of her mouth was a word that starts with "F" and is generally reserved for episodes of the Sopranos. Yes, that word. Crystal clear.

Since Kate has never heard that word in her life, I know this is just a somewhat horrifying mispronunciation. Still, since she totally thinks that's the name for these shoes, I'm doing some emergency speech therapy and trying to get her to say "plaid" correctly. She pronounces each separate part of the word perfectly. Pah. La. Duh. And then when I ask her to put them together, there it is. The Cuss Word of all Cuss Words. When I cringe, she looks at me like "What? I just want my shoes!" Oh goodness.

Given my child's new propensity for cursing like a sailor, announcing the status of her undergarments and demanding to be fed macaroni and cheese every time we drive East on the freeway, I am starting to think we may have to stay home for a while. Dan made me an emergency diaper and wipe packet to keep in the car so the Epic Diaper won't be repeated. But still. I just think you should all visit us at home until we're more fit for public consumption.