The Self-Cleaning High-Chair Set Up

This only works if you have dogs, but I highly recommend the Chicco Hippo clip-on high chair.*

Because you can do this:



Or this:



In case this isn't self-explanatory, as the baby drops food on the floor, it falls in or near the dog dishes, and the dogs eat it up! Voilà, no sweeping or scrubbing the floor necessary.

Then when baby is done eating and out of the seat, you can just sweep any remaining pieces of food, crumbs, and whatnot off the counter and the seat into the dog bowls--no handful of gucky orts** to dump in the trash or sink, and since they're perfectly edible, nothing for the landfill or sewage treatment plant!

The only downside is that EV has now realized that it's fun to drop pieces of cheese, apple, cookie, etc. into the bowls first to hear the "ping" and then to watch the dogs scramble to beat each other to the prize...but whatever--it's building critical thinking skills, and Magellan, who used to just ignore the baby, has decided she's not so bad after all...


*Some people are apprehensive about using these, thinking they are not that stable. I researched them, and some are not stable, but others are. Look for one that has loooong support bars that go far underneath the table/counter. My ER doc sister-in-law also uses the gold standard of: "Have I seen accidents from this in the ER?" Re: such portable high chairs, she said nope, no accidents.

It's also great because you can just take off the seat and throw it in the wash (yes I know the instructions say to hand wash, but like I'm really going to do that). The washer treated it just fine.

**Out of the crosswords and into the blogosphere--I have long desired the right context in which to use this fabulous word!