Thief! Thief!

The Dictator had her first run in with the law. Yup, that's right. The Law.

The Dictator stole a pair of shoes and a doll from BabyGap.

Nanny Mimi, The Dictator, one of my friends and myself all went to this mall in Scottsdale, Arizona, yesterday. Before we left, I was super-excited about this excursion.

"Shop and drop," I kept telling The Dictator. "That's all we are going to do today. Shop and Drop. Shop and Drop. Are you ready? Can you say, 'Shop and Drop?'"

"Shop and Drop," The Dictator would repeat. "Ready!"

"Good girl," I'd say, patting her on her head. Sometimes, The Dictator is so easy to train. Anyway.

We had stopped in the BabyGap, because there was this straw hat I've become obsessed with. Rather, I've become obsessed with The Dictator wearing this straw hat. Baby Gap had one left, which was on a baby mannequin all the way up above a stack of jeans.

(Why are the baby mannequins so much scarier than adult-size manniquens? And how do you spell mannequin anyway?)

The Dictator was in her stroller, The Baby Gap salesperson was on a ladder, trying to reach the straw hat, and it was pretty much a nightmare. As you could imagine, I wasn't exactly paying attention to The Dictator. I mean, I really wanted that hat for her.

After all that trouble, the hat - sigh - was too big for The Dictator's pint-size head. Frustrated, because I wanted the hat and it didn't fit The Dictator, and also because Nieman Marcus didn't take Visa and I was all ready to shell out big bucks for a Miu Miu white purse, I left Baby Gap in a bit of a huff. My "Shop and Drop" day wasn't going so well.

Halfway across the mall, I looked down only to see that there was a pair of shoes and a monkey doll in The Dictator's hands. Gaa! The Baby Gap tags were still on them. The shoes were about four sizes too small for The Dictator. And she already owns the doll she had stolen.

"Oh my God! You have to take them back," I said to Nanny Mimi, handing the "hot" items to her.

"You!"

"You!"

"You!"

"You!"

My friend thought we should just forget about it and take off but a) I'm no thief and b) the shoes The Dictator had five-fingered, were way too small. I mean, if you're going to steal something, at least steal them in your own size. Or at least that's what I told The Dictator. Joking.

Nanny Mimi ran back to Baby Gap and gave the shoes and the doll back. I'm grateful no alarm bells went off. Although, it would be kind of funny to call The Fiance and say, "This is my one phone call. The Dictator stole a pair of shoes from Baby Gap. Bail us out!"

I just love how toddlers want something in a store, and so they take it, like they have no worries in the world, like, 'La la la. I like that monkey doll. I'm going to take them. La la la."

Now I'm all paranoid that this experience will be the one I look back on in 14 years and say, "Well, she started out stealing from Baby Gap, and it just went downhill from there."