Any time Mr. Husband abandons his ladies for an evening, I try to make it a mission to have a Girls' Night Out. This past Friday was no exception. First Alexis I stopped at the house to pick up the dog that has never before chewed my car's emergency break until it looked like a mangled hunk of plastic (four years and two cars later I still haven't forgiven a certain smelly beast for that). After that we set out for our favorite restaurant to partake in some Thai and traveled South of town to the new Outlet Mall for some serious shopping.

We'll be headed to Indiana for Thanksgiving, so I figured a little dose of time in the car would be good for Cody. He's going to need to get used to riding around and waiting patiently in a vehicle if he's going to survive the 6-hour trek there, after all. And HOO-BOY am I glad I decided to get him some time in the car because it turns out that Cubans have a thing against Germans. I'm not sure what the deal is exactly, but I know that the little Havanese is totally content and not-sick riding around in Mr. Husband's Japanese SUV, but he turns into a little fountain of vomit riding around in my German car.

So, yeah, that part was fun. At least it was during a quick trip out and not a 6-hour drive, though.

Once Alexis and I arrived at the Outlets, we headed straight for the restrooms. We had consumed our respective weights in salty noodles and water, so it was a priority. The restrooms at the Outlets are, with the exception of the ones along Rodeo Drive, some of the nicest ones I have personally visited. Considering I've visited pretty much every restroom there is, that's saying something. They are pretty simple in decor, but very functional. There is a mothers' room with a fully equipped changing table (not of that fold down crazy crap that Alexis has been too heavy for since long before she walked), a decent rocking chair, and all sorts of little amenities that I would have greatly appreciated back in the day. The always clean main stalls are over-sized and come complete with a spacious shelf for your shopping bags and, of course, automatically flushing toilets.

I'm pretty sure Alexis has encountered a self-flushing toilet before, but apparently she has not encountered one on a day when she was incapable of sitting still for a split second. She spent her time atop the throne dancing around like the crazy chick she is, and managed to trigger the sensor. I don't think I have ever seen that kid fly quite as high or nearly as fast as she did when that toilet flushed while she was still seated. And, yes, I plan to make fun of her for about five years about it.

After watching a toilet traumatize my kid, we set out for a quick jaunt through Gap and scored BIG TIME, but I can't write about any of that because that would be admitting to something that I'm not going to admit to knowing that Mr. Husband reads this. Ahem.

So OF COURSE Alexis and I were well-behaved. Totally.

And if we weren't? Well, that's just what he gets for leaving us unsupervised.