2007-12-06 - 6:18 p.m.

...how to stuff a cat into a baby sling...or not....

I coaxed K into making a lovely HUGE salad this morning (well, 11:45am), and I have been grazing all day in an effort to ward off pizza. It was a wonderful salad. Truly.

And then I spent the afternoon grading. Some of these papers are a cinch to grade - others.... well, with others it is painfully obvious that they did not have time to do the assignment properly. And others have chosen truly respectable topics - that bore me to tears. So I've been trying to alternate between papers that I know I'll like and papers that I wade through as if I'm having my teeth filled.

As part of my procrastination to avoid reading a loving assignment on salmonid recruitment (yawn), I came downstairs and allowed myself to plow through three enormous boxes of baby goodies from Harri3tspy. K particularly likes the rolling wooden Humpty Dumpty that plays "London Bridge is Falling Down." I am partial to the Boynton books, and especially the wind-up Bear in a Box that plays "Pop Goes the Weasel." K is learning all of the words to these songs..and I hope feeling inspired to get his friends to send him some Kinderliede pretty darned soon.

The next level of procrastination has been to wash all of the wonderful sheets and blankets and cute little baby clothing that she sent.

So I sent K out to buy a new detergent... because it turns out that washing cloth diapers and other baby paraphernalia is a freakin' science. Because just any ol' detergent will apparently reduce a diaper's ability to absorb and lord knows we don't want THAT to happen. Add onto that a very particular front loader that requires special "HE" detergent (this I truly do not understand - I lived seven years in a country with front loaders that didn't give a damn about the type of detergent used) - you've got a fun road ahead of you. Now add to this little game the fact that none of the top-recommended detergents (reviewed by US diaper websites, of course) are available in the Maple Leaf Country. I had found one web page that reviewed Canadian brands - and forgot to bookmark it. aRGH. And couldn't find it again. So I'm taking my chances on a particular brand that has been "Canada's favorite non-toxic detergent for 40 years" (or something like that) and declaring a moratorium on diaper research. I need to STOP READING. Because I'm beginning to believe all this stuff.

So, K came home with detergent, put in a load of baby stuff, and pulled out his French Horn. He played for all of 5-10 minutes, which is probably enough playing after not touching the thing for about a decade. He didn't sound that bad, actually. Anybody know of some good clarinet / french horn duets? I smell many happy years of driving down real estate prices ahead of us.

Anyway, while he was creating dulcet tones, I decided to play around with the baby bjorn baby hanger that Harri3t sent, using the only thing I had - a gigantic stuffed penguin - as a baby model. K caught me. Stopped playing. And asked what the HELL I was doing stuffing a penguin down my chest. I'm guessing the baby slinger works a lot better with a real baby...

Hmmm, of course there's always Lyra the cat, who is very eagerly and affectionately waiting for her dinner ... Wonder what SHE'd think of baby bjorn. yeah, I think I'll give her a massage, floss her teeth, put a leash on her, and make her swallow a couple of pills before I try to stuff her into a contraption that pushes her untrimmed claws against my breasts.

My oh my, what an expert procrastinator I am - can we easily discern my love of salmonid recruitment from this exercise??