The "monster"

After Luke was born I knew we needed to vacuum more often. I don’t know if it was a “nesting” thing or more of a mommy thing, knowing that your little one is going to be on the floor and all. I just knew that vacuuming once a week would not be enough to make sure the floor was clean enough for my little guy. So not long after Luke was born my husband broke out the vacuum. At first Luke would cry when he heard it but then he would settle down and just look around like he was saying “what was that”. Of course at this age I held him while daddy vacuumed.


It wasn’t too long though before daddy had to go back to work and grandma was no longer able to stay and help out. That meant mommy had to learn to multi-task with vacuuming. I figured Luke had to be used to the noise, so I would put him in his bouncy seat and then got out the vacuum. Luke would do fine, until I fired up the vacuum. Once that noise started he would scream and stay screaming until I was done. At first I felt horrible and even tried to use one of those carriers so that I could “hold” him and vacuum at the same time. Unfortunately he didn’t go for that either. He was too smart, he knew mommy wasn’t really “holding” him and he was too scared of the vacuum to fall for it.

It eventually became a joke between Luke and I….more for my benefit than his. Every time I got ready to vacuum I would look at him, place him somewhere like his bouncy seat, and say “mommy is going to go get the monster, prepare yourself”. Each time I fired up the “monster” you would think I was torturing my son or something. When I turned off the “monster” he would suddenly stop screaming, take a deep breath and look at me like “are you done now?”. Then I would tell him “I’m putting the monster back in the closet, say bye-bye”. Until recently I didn’t realize I better not say that last statement much longer, he might start taking it literally.

The amazing thing about all of this is that once Luke started crawling, around 16 months old, he stopped screaming when I ran the vacuum and instead started following it all over the house. Eventually he started smacking it and laughing. Now, every time we vacuum we have a tradition. Mommy says, “let’s go get the monster” and Luke follows me into the baby’s room to get the vacuum out of the closet. Then he says, “aaahhh…aaaahhhh”…like he is all excited. Then we plug in the vacuum and Luke follows it all over the house, sometimes laughing and sometimes slapping the side like it is a horse that needs to “getty-up”. Then when we’re done he sits in fascination while the cord sucks itself back inside and then I say “let’s put the monster up” and he follows me to the closet and says “aahhh….aaahhh” and sometimes he even waves like he is saying “bye, see ya later”.

It is amazing how fast our kids can change when they can conquer one little thing that changes their perspective.

Don't look for any blogs this next week, we are overhauling our bathroom and I'm not so sure I'll have the time.