Furry High Chair

Perhaps I'm just not feeding my child correctly, but every day her high chair (which has a very nice cloth covering) is saturated with goo (specifically all of the days foods ground together and mixed with spit, juice, milk, and, dare I say, might be even a little "leakage" now and then). We're not just talking every couple of days- EVERY SINGLE STINKIN' (oh! did I mention the smell if left on longer than 24 hours? I'm pretty sure it's toxic.) DAY!! I'm wondering if I'm actually supposed to sit her ON TOP of the cloth, or if I should take off the beautiful outer cloth- revealing the ugly, black, plasticky, sparsely padded thingy underneath- and sit her on that? Then, let it get all gooey, and use the pretty cloth covering to hide everything underneath. That only leaves me with one problem. That disgusting gooey stuff seems to be her favorite appetizer while she's impatiently waiting for me to get her real dinner (which, I must admit, on more than one occasion, is whatever cheerios I can dig out of her car seat until I get our own dinner made). I don't know if it's the texture of the goo that she likes? I know it can't be the smell, and if it's the taste she likes, I've got the easiest kid to please in the world! What was that? Avacado and strawberry omelets for dinner? Mmmmmmmm, my favorite!!
It had been several days since we looked too closely at the high chair (both Scott and I figuring if neither of us stared at it directly we could claim ignorance, thereby forfeiting our parental obligation to CLEAN it), and it was one of the kids that pointed out how disgusting it looked. I figured 'Here's a kid who doesn't think a 4 month old rotting sandwich at the bottom of his bookbag is gross, and HE noticed it' I realized it must be pretty bad. I had to drag the encrusted equipment into our shower and blast it with hot water for about 20 minutes to loosen the cemented goo mixture, before spraying it down and scrubbing. It just about glistened when I was done. I washed the beautiful outer covering, and placed it on top. What a beautiful sight (I had even used a knife to get into the cracks where sludge was hiding). I vowed to be more careful when feeding Ava from now on. So, that evening, I carefully placed my SQUEAKY CLEAN daughter into her nice SQUEAKY CLEAN high chair for dinner. I carefully put a mumu style bib on her, and turned around to get her dinner ready. The rest is a blur. All I know is that when I turned back around a few minutes later, there was my still beautiful daughter, covered in potato/mandarin orange/soggy cheerio/milky/sludgy GOO! I checked the ceiling- nothing. I looked at the other kids- they were as amazed as I was. Perhaps Ava had something hidden in her pocket she dug out, perhaps it was the goo fairy, perhaps the high chair oozes the sludge as a protective coating for teething babies. I DON"T KNOW. All I know is that the next step is simple.

It's time to get a dog.