At just over the two week mark of Charlotte's life, I believe this means we are officially qualified to take the next step -- offering up unsolicited parental advice. Now, considering the number of tips we've received both before and after her birth, you would think that I have little to share in the way of new or groundbreaking ideas. And you were probably right until this morning.

So, here is a simple piece of advice -- as always, the first one is free. Don't wash a dirty disposable diaper. Do not dry said diaper after it has been through the wash. Let's start with the first half of this new axiom. In fact, it might be good to take a step back and say that placing an open laundry basket next to the Diaper Champ was perhaps a bit overconfident. Particularly when diapers are being changed between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m.

However, the errant toss, much more costly than missing the waste basket, or simple survival-like quality of the velcro on the newborn diapers means that a disposable diaper went in with this morning's load. The scent free detergent and cold water was apparently enough to mask the smell; but the poop hit the dryer fan shortly thereafter.

Apparently the heat of both machines managed to bake in the smell and turn the dryer lint caustic. Now, when a disposable diaper sheds, it turns into the foul-smelling equivalent of a sticker that refuses to come off the bottom of a glass. So there I squatted in our basement, attempting to remove the flecks of soiled diaper from our dryer shield and failing. These are the moments we'll never get back.

*The diaper pictured above is one of about two dozen suspects. This case will go in the books as unsolved.