The Newest Member of our Family

You know the women's magazines that write those stories about how it is a bad sign if your husband gives you a vacuum cleaner for your birthday? They are so wrong! The right vacuum cleaner can be so romantic.

Brian just gave me an iRobot Roomba! It is a robot vacuum cleaner. I just push a button and it vacuums the whole room — while I'm writing a story or feeding Tyler. It even cleans under the sofas, beds and end tables. And really, how often do we do that?!

The best part is that Brian is so excited about our new gadget that he's been picking up toys and vacuuming the whole house (while watching TV).

The second best part was introducing Tyler to the Roomba. Last night, we cleaned the kitchen floor. We sat Roomba in the middle of the floor and Brian pushed the "clean" button. It started circling around the floor making its little "zoom" noise.

Tyler was frantically doing the "all done" sign to ask us to turn that thing off.

We reassured him that it was fine, and when he realized we really weren't going to turn it off, he started throwing toys at it.

After about 10 minutes, he began to accept the Roomba, but he did look concerned when it moved in his direction. He began trying to say "Roomba." It sounded more like "mama."

In order to feed him dinner, I had to move his highchair so that he could watch the Roomba. And this morning, he chased it around the living room watching anxiously for it to reappear every time it went under the sofa.