Babyclutter and babymess

I wage a daily war with babyclutter.

Pre-child, it was my office at work that was severly cluttered with office memos, mail, music, more music, and props/theater junk. Oddly, that stuff never bothered me as much as babyclutter.

Babyclutter, for the uninitiated, is the constant tide of toysclothesbooksbibscheeriosgadgets that washes over one's domicile in a most unrelenting fashion once you have an infant.

Mostly, I think it originates from my need to keep Richard O. with me as I work around the house, which, in turn means that I have to have a small collection of safe objects for him to play with wherever we go. This, in itself, is not the problem -- I keep wicker baskets around the house to keep his toys in.

No, the real issue is that once we get going for the day, I often have to flit from one space to the next pretty fast because the phone rings, or there's a diaper emergency, or he's gotten fussy in his high chair -- and in our wake, there's a mess. And though I can do a temporary tidy-up, it's nearly pointless, since I have to keep moving from room to room and taking out the toys again as we go from place to place.

And then there's babymess -- the combination of half-chewed cheerios, drooled-out vegetables, banana slime and fruit juice that accumulates on Richard O's high chair, the carpet, his clothes, and all over his skin! The area underneath his high chair is so completely yucky, despite putting a shower curtain down on the floor to protect the carpet. He is just one messy little eater -- and more and more, he insists on feeding himself, which results in -- you guessed it -- more babymess.

He is firmly anti-bib, too. No matter which bib I use, or how tightly or loosely I arrange it, he pulls at the bib until it comes off, while protesting loudly. Getting the stains out of his clothing is getting harder and harder. I'm considering just having him wear his "messy clothes" when he eats to prevent further carnage.

I've already accepted that I'll never be Martha Stewart (not that I'd want to be), but I don't want to be Pigpen, either. Somebody save me from the babyclutter & babymess!