Vacuum on Overdrive

I recall working at one of my first jobs out of college, and a coworker and I were discussing the cleaning habits of our significant others.  Without getting into the obsessive nature of Peter's cleanliness, I'll just say that this guy had Peter beat.   Not only did he seem to have Peter's habits of constantly aligning things, he was absolutely anal about dust and carpets.  He vacuumed his home every day after work.  EVERY DAY!  I thought this was neurotic and over the top at the time.  I know now that I was naive and idealistic. Because the greater part of this story would also note that this couple had two children, while at the time, we had none.  Not only do I understand this man better, I've embraced his philosophy out of necessity.  I've reached this level of vacuuming as well, and sometimes I vacuum parts of my house two or three times a day, if the occasion calls for it.  And it often does.

Take the dining room carpet for example.  It's a land mine of mess that needs to be vacuumed every day for sure.  If I don't follow the regiment of vacuuming this room every day, it is like walking through what might appear to be a very successful food fight.  Nina and Jocelyn are in a horrible stage of tossing food and dumping their plates.  It's a disgusting, hair-pulling mess.  Samuel and Ethan, while much better at containing their food in a normal manner, still struggle to completely keep their zones at the table litter free.  Not to mention this is the room where we do the vast majority of our crafts that include cutting with scissors, sharpening crayons (3 and 4 year old style), play-doh, stringing beads, dying eggs, carving pumpkins, and all sundry of adventures that seem lead to the same place known as "On the Floor Ville."

If the day-to-day lifestyle isn't enough to hit the vacuuming hard, my kids like to give mom and the ol' vacuum a challenge through other exploits.  This past November, Nina and Jocelyn managed to climb up the pantry shelves, ladder style, and reach way in the back of one of the shelves and pull out the box of barley.  They carried the box to the living room, dumped it out, and then started eating it.  They were kind enough to share with Samuel and Ethan.  Who knew that hard, raw barley was so tasty?  After snapping a few pictures for proof, I proceeded to vacuum the disaster, and the four children proceeded to poop very frequently for the next two days.

Then there was the styrofoam incident. Following Thanksgiving, the Christmas packages started to roll in. I had ordered some glass items from Amazon, and they arrived all broken due to poor packaging. When the boys saw the boxes in the laundry room, they were ecstatic and asked if they could have them. I separated the boxes for return and said very specifically, "You can play in these big boxes. Do not touch this pile or any of the packing supplies. Especially the styrofoam!"  I went upstairs to be with Peter and the girls and sounds of laughter and joy came from the basement.  Boxes are so entertaining!  About thirty minutes later, Samuel comes up the stairs, covered with little white spots of styrofoam and says, "Mommy, I made a mistake." Trying to hold my breath to control the temper I felt rising, I followed him downstairs to an absolute disaster. The next line out of my mouth was "This wasn't a mistake! This was a choice! A VERY BAD CHOICE!" They had taken my styrofoam packing, and crushed it into tiny, eensy, weensy pieces and spread it all over the laundry room.  It was in everything, including the laundry, behind my machines, stuck to ironing clothes, stuck in the cleaning supplies, in all their art supplies, and on and on!  Needless to say, out came the vacuum. And two months later, I'm still vacuuming up random pieces of it. Of course, I took pictures!  My only sadness is that, alas, because much of the "stuff" in the laundry room is white, the pictures don't do the mess justice. 

Whether it is the emptied box of Cheerios by the lazy susan, the mashed popcorn in the couch, or simply the day-to-day dining room war, there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not sucking something up with my Hoover.  So to my friend in Maryland.  I get it.  I really do.  My vacuum is completely, and totally in overdrive.