If it had happened at Walmart, I could have made People of Walmart.

But it didn’t happen in Walmart, it happened in JC Penney.

So many mistakes were made that if I could have a do-over, I’m not even sure which would be the most important to do-over first. Of course the situation would have been avoided entirely had I not attempted to shop for clothes without assistance, but in lieu of that, the next smartest thing would have been not to let the Burt Squirt out of his stroller so he could run amok in the fitting room while I tried on clothes. Smarter still would have been to check before undressing that I was in a fitting room that actually locked, or, at the very least, to make sure that the door latched shut properly so that the Burt Squirt couldn’t push it open and dart out into the Juniors department.

Which is precisely what happened.

While I was clad only in a pair of khaki shorts and a flesh-toned strapless bra, looking, at a glance, quite naked.

It was one of those moments in which you feel suspended in time as the world moves on around you. There I stood, in the wide open doorway of the fitting room, fully exposed to anyone who happened by, watching the Burt Squirt’s short, chubby legs increase the distance across which I would have to streak. He stumbled a little over the toe of his slightly too-long sandal as he looked back over his shoulder to mock me with the gap-toothed grin that should not have been at all adorable under the circumstance, while I stood there, ineffectively calling him to come back to me and wondering whether I was going to have to chase after him, barely clothed as I was, or if I could scramble into a shirt before I lost him in the racks of clothes or worse.

I took my chances and opted to get dressed first. I may be willing to be that mom, who attracts a number of head wags and eye rolls because shecan’t get her toddler to ride in his stroller without him pitching a shrieking temper tantrum, but I’m not quite ready to be that mom, who chases her toddler naked through JC Penney. I still have a shred of dignity left–

–the shred that makes me willing to blog about almost chasing my toddler naked through JC Penney.

The inevitable has happened.

And then, of course, the companionable moment was broken when the Burt Squirt tried to take things too fast, too soon.

Poor Dorrie was forced to take refuge in the litter box, but even there found no respite; the Burt Squirt sent a spatula in after her.

Back in 2002, Robin Williams made us all a little leery of the drugstore lab techs who develop our pictures and get a glimpse of our personal lives. Or at least the idea of a lonely, unbalanced Walmart photo center becoming obsessed with a customer through her family pictures made me think twice about getting my photos developed after I saw One Hour Photo. Fortunately I was a college student at the time and couldn’t afford to get pictures developed, and shortly thereafter dawned the age of digital photography and home laser printers, so I was able to put those horror flick-induced fears behind me; One Hour Photo was soon pushed to the back recesses of my mind where movies I didn’t like very much go to be forgotten…

…until today, when I walked into my neighborhood CVS to pick up a few prints.

I was carrying the Burt Squirt, and the rather trollish woman behind the counter saw us as she rang up a customer and made me jump by shouting, “I know that baby!”

At first (because, as I said, I hadn’t thought about One Hour Photo in years) I thought she was referring to the fact that we’re regular customers. I discovered this wasn’t the case when she said, “Oh my gawd, that picture! The one on the playground, with the monkey bars–that is the cutest picture I’ve ever seen! And I see a lot of baby pictures in here!”

Suddenly visions of a psychotic Robin Williams were dancing in my head. My heartbeat quickened–this person not only had seen the Burt Squirt’s pictures, she had my phone number, my address…she was going to to come steal my child–

“I have eight grandchildren,” her nasally tones that sounded uncannily like Roseanne’s interrupted my panicked internal monologue, “so I know about cute kids! You should send that picture to a magazine!”

She was so busy talking up the Burt Squirt’s picture to her customer that she didn’t notice the huge sigh of relief I heaved. Of course, contrary to what the movies would have us believe, most people who work in drugstores are not lonely and unhinged and suffering from delusions of being adopted into the families whose pictures they develop. For most people, developing pictures is just a job.

A job some people are very good at; after telling me how cute my kid was, I was putty in her hands when she asked me if I’d like to buy some picture frames for a dollar apiece.

Why, yes, I will take three, please.

In my family we have a favorite story about my brother, then age twoish, getting caught by my friend Crystal eating her cat’s food. Actually, she didn’t catch him eating; she caught him kneeling next to the cat’s food dish spitting something out onto the floor. Which, of course, she could only deduce to be cat food.

When Crystal inquired about it, Greg scrunched up his nose in an expression of distaste and replied, “That cereal was yucky.”

Since the Burt Squirt became mobile, various family members have laughingly warned me to keep our cat’s food dish out of his reach. Usually when he’s crawling or toddling about I do, but today the Burt Squirt turned on the stealth and managed to try the yucky cereal on the sly.

Only he didn’t seem to think it was very yucky.

Of course it happened because I was distracted–ironically, with cooking the Burt Squirt’s dinner. Obviously I wasn’t serving dinner quickly enough, because when I turned around, there was the Burt Squirt, sitting in the kitchen with his legs splayed out, Dorrie’s food dish between them. One pudgy hand hand fisted as many dry chicken pellets as the stubby fingers could close around; the other waved winsomely at me.

His little mouth, still with only the four front teeth in it, was chewing.

And it would have continued to do so, judging from the way his nose was not scrunched up in an expression of distaste, had I not gone fishing for one, two, and a half pieces of cat food. There might have been more–probably there was at least another half a piece–but the Burt Squirt wriggled away before I could plumb the depths of his mouth for the rest of his quarry. Goodness only knows how much he consumed before I saw him doing it.

I’m not worried, especially since just the other day I saw a TV ad for an expensive brand of cat food that slagged off all the commercial brands for being made mainly of corn. If corn’s good enough for my cat, it’s good enough for my kid! That might be a backwards philosophy, but I’ll keep it in mind in the dog days of summer when he starts catching and eating the baby geckos that find their way into the house.

“It’s like he knows it’s Christmas,” Mr. Burt moaned, sometime between 3:30 and 4 on Christmas morning. We were staying with my parents, and the Burt Squirt had been awake since 1:30. Mostly chattering and chuckling as Mr. Burt snuggled with him in our bed, rocking having failed to produce any result than making our nine month-old scream.

I replied that I’d been about to say the same thing. While I wasn’t surprised to have passed on the inability to sleep on Christmas Eve that had plagued me since childhood, I hadn’t expected that trait to manifest in the Burt Squirt at such an early age. Especially since he virtually ignored Christmas trees and burst into tears at the mere sight of Santa Claus.

As it turned out, Christmas Day showed us the true reason for the Burt Squirt’s restlessness:

He cut his first tooth.

Which, I suppose, was a rather Christmassy thing to do. (Clever boy.)

Maybe that was why he cried when he sat in Santa’s lap: he told him he wanted teeth, but he knew it was really going to hurt. (Poor baby.)

The Yuletide teething didn’t catch us completely unawares, as the previous day’s lunch at Braums gave a revelatory glimpse of a whole mouthful of chompers ready to pop.

Yes, that’s a plastic ketchup cup we let the Burt Squirt play with while we ate our hamburgers and ice cream cones. (Inventive lad.)

Lucky for the Burt Squirt–not to mention the parents desperate to distract a grumpy teething baby–he didn’t just get his bottom front tooth for Christmas:

That’s just Liam’s pile.

Not even thinking about that new tooth!

Well, maybe even a pony, Woody doll, musical walking toy, phone, garage and trucks, snappy beads, talking stuffed dog, ball, and alphabet puzzle mat don’t totally make up for teething.

But even if we were a little sore–and sleepy–we still had a very happy first Burt Christmas.