The farm we went to last weekend is about a 2 hr and 15 min drive west of my house.  So Friday afternoon I was busy packing the truck, going in and out of the house and Magpie (new nickname for 9 month old daughter) was playing nicely in the living room.  Our house is mostly childproof and I had the baby gates up to keep her out of the areas that weren’t.  Back and forth I went, checking on Magpie each time.  I got the truck loaded (damn traveling with kids requires a lot of “Stuff”) and decided to change out her baby car seat/carrier for the bigger one that would allow her to face forward. Picture of car seat found here  I know, I know your not supposed to do this until they are 1 yr old but please don’t report me to the car seat nazi’s.  My thinking was that she would have an easier time traveling if she could see me and see where we were going.  Not that she knows where we were going, but so that she could see out the window – you know, give her something to look at besides the ceiling of my truck.  So I removed the car seat/carrier and got the “Big Girl” car seat and tried to install it.  My truck has those D-rings that you clip the car seat into, but the car seat has some “assembly required” before it will work properly.  Mainly you have to partially remove the cover and thread the built in buckle through the holes in the back.  It took me a minute to figure out what needed to be done (including reading the instructions written on the side) and to get it clipped in.  All in all I had been outside about 15 minutes and when I had the buckle tightened I suddenly thought “Oh Shit” because I had left Magpie inside, by herself, this whole time.  So I quickly ran into the house and there was my little Magpie sitting in the middle of the kitchen with cat food everywhere.  I feel bad for having to leave the cats locked up in the house when we go to the farm so I always feed them canned cat when I leave.  That is the only time they get canned food and it is just to relieve my guilt of neglecting them for 2 whole days.  So I had put the food on a paper plate, in the middle of the kitchen floor, while I was loading the truck.  Apparently Magpie thought it looked good enough to eat and when I came inside she had it in her hair, on her face, both hands were covered in it and from the look of her knees, yes she had crawled through it.  She had the most disgusting look on her face and the cats were under the kitchen table with the same look on their faces.  I only wish I had thought to take a picture of her.  So for feeding my daughter canned cat food, I think I should get a “Mother of the Year” award.