He now attacks his kicky bouncy thing with the kind of annoyed despondency of an overeducated, single man in his mid-thirties in a cheap suit sitting in a cubicle farm. Dutifully, his legs kick; the lights go and the sounds chirp, but his hands ball up and stuff themselves into his mouth between yawns, his back arches. His entire disposition is so Office Space that I truly do feel bad for inserting him in the kicky-bouncy, but I do it anyway for the time it affords me. There's only so much you can do with a Baby Bjorn attached, excluding bending, peeing, folding clothing, cooking... you know, like everything I have on my to-do list.

So I'm teaching him about the futility of life. The good part, even if it is evil, is that when I take the offending toy bar away, he grins at me with such joy and relief, like a cat who, when sprayed with the water bottle, runs to the spray-er for protection.