Soaking It In

There is something about the Bumbo chair that makes the Stuber babies appear a bit disgusted. Or perhaps Alida is just now getting a good look around at what lies before her. There are boys flying through the room with capes hanging down their backs, and one doesn’t appear to have a diaper on. There is a swing wildly carrying a screaming girl off to her left—up and back, up and back. Who set that thing on the highest setting? Boys? And there is a rocking horse across the room, laying on its side the handle shoved dangerously high in the air, and it is now being used as a means to climb onto the couch. In the distance she hears a great racket as the bath time pirate toy’s massive suction cups are wrenched from the bathroom wall for cleaning by dad (why can’t those dinner plates have suction cups that good?) Mom is now chasing Nicholas with a diaper in one hand and a bottle of lotion in the other. Dad flashes in with his signature, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. WHAT are YOU doing?” to the one that has made it onto the couch and is now judging the leap to the top of the bookshelf where the telephone is at. From the next room there are echoes of “no, no, no” coming from Nicholas as he fights the nightly slathering and mom tries to keep hold of the half-greased wriggling child. And she is pretty sure that it is time to be changed and fed herself, much as Elaine has been exclaiming to her side for some time.