Oh actually, the one thing that avoids a crying baby while I'm doing dinner is to bring his highchair in to the kitchen, and put him in with things to occupy him - food, toys, whatever. He usually decides to play the 'drop things on the floor so mummy will pick it up' game, and I play along and make it funny because it's better than him crying the whole time. Funnily enough it hasn't resulted in him dropping stuff from the chair at other times, which I thought it might.