I walked the Walk of Shame this morning. Or, at least, I walked the 35-year-old Catholic mom version of it. My family was at Mass, and of course it was a quiet moment because it’s always a quiet moment, when my littlest little person announced to everyone who could hear her (at least half of the congregation) that she had to go pee pee. She pretty much does that at every Mass we attend, so it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been. But this time, she decided to expand the discourse on her pottying needs.

“Mommy!” she shouted. “I have to go pee pee. But ‘dis time, I gonna close my legs so I don’t get pee pee everywhere. Ok, mommy? OK?”

I wanted to laugh; I wanted to cry, but I was so frozen by embarrassment that I all could do was furiously whisper for her to use her (bleeping implied) inside voice.

To which she replied, loudly, “I talkin’ loud like ‘dis Mommy… I talkin’ loud like ‘dis… I TALKIN’ LOUD LIKE ‘DIS, MOMMY, BECAUSE I WANT TO TALK LIKE ‘DIS!”

At this point I had almost reached the door, where safety lay, when I sensed the presence of my older daughter jogging up behind me. I looked over my shoulder. She was holding her crotch.

“Mommy!” she shouted. “I’m holding my crotch because I have to pee too!”

So I grabbed her hand, hung my head, and made my ignominious exit.

We completed our pottying exercise almost without incident. I say almost because just as we were approaching the doors  to go back into Mass, my younger daughter broke away from us running, looking back at me to shout, “Mommy! Dere’s a girl here with PINK HAIR! It should be BROWN, Mommy!” And then she sprinted away toward the open doors of the sanctuary, with me yell-whispering for her to freeze while I ran after her dragging my older daughter — who was agog at the pink-haired girl — reluctantly behind me.

Our very noticeable return was, fortunately, at the tail end of the service. So people hardly even noticed when my younger daughter started singing “Peace and harmony, in all the world! Peace and harmony, in all the world! Pe-eace and Ha-armony!” It’s a good thing people didn’t hear her, or they might have gotten the mistaken impression that she had actually benefited from the homily which was about, well, peace and harmony in all the world.

Instead, she was just repeating a song from one of her favorite TV shows, Peppa Pig.