Vacuuming: One step closer to insanity!

Okay, this dog does not look happy.
But, this may be the answer to my dreams!

I like a clean house. Problem is, I don’t want to clean it. It’s not the actually cleaning part, but more the amount of precious time needed to keep it clean. Dust accumulates overnight in this house. Our dog is a Golden Retriever. You cannot own a Golden Retriever unless you like to vacuum. I mean really, really like to vacuum. We have maple hardwood floors, which are approximately the same color as the dog’s hair, so you don’t always see it until it starts billowing up behind you as you walk by. If it’s been a few days between vacuuming, and happens to coincide with a more heavy seasonal shed, there can be a lot of dog hair on the floor. When I vacuum during one of these heavier-than-normal-shedding times, the whole top layer of floor appears to move as a unit as it is sucked into the floor nozzle. We have a Dyson, which I can truly state is the best vacuum I have ever owned. Seeing how much dirt and hair I suck up in just one room is amazing, and appalling. We have some area rugs which are vacuumed with the Dyson in upright mode. The rotating brush picks up the dog hair very effectively, but the length of my dog’s hair twirls around and around the brushes and must be cut and pulled out by hand every month. I have had to replace a few parts of the Dyson due to wear and tear, and a few parts that did not survive the day the Dyson had an unfortunate fall down our wood stairs.

Overall, vacuuming is not that big of a chore, but my house is large and it takes over two hours to vacuum all of it. I seldom vacuum the entire house in one session. The Teenager will usually vacuum her room if the vacuum is brought in and left there. Last Son will occasionally volunteer to vacuum his room.

My issue with vacuuming is all the crap on the floors which requires me to bend over, pick up the item and put it out of the vacuum’s suck zone. Last Son likes to have Nerf gun battles throughout the house, and I am getting really tired of picking up Nerf darts as I vacuum. I’ve tried vacuuming around them, but the Dyson sucks them up like they’re Dyson food. If I am in “Nice Mom” mode, I’ll pluck them out of the canister right away. “Nice Mom” rinses these darts off (dust sticks to Nerf darts like glue) before resuming vacuuming.  If “Mean Mom”, on the otherhand, is in charge of vacuuming that day, she shows no mercy until she is finished.  It is likely that she will get distracted before she remembers there are Nerf darts and other “precious items” inside the canister.  If the kids are home, “Mean Mom” gives a ten minute warning to Teenager and Last Son that vacuuming will commence in ten minutes. This announcement is followed by my children scrambling to pick up all the crap on their floors before the vacuum is turned on. “Mean Mom” does not intentionally vacuum up anything left on the floor, but it can and will happen. “Mean Mom” says, “Oops, I have no idea what that was”, as the sucked up item rattles into the canister. Sometimes I can see what the victim item is before it is swallowed deep into the hair and dirt, and if it is something I will need to replace (meaning it is necessary and will cost money), I will retrieve it. However, if the victim item is “non-essential” in my world, or cannot be readily identified, no search for the victim item will ensue. 

When Teenager was a toddler, to her horror she witnessed a few Barbie shoes get sucked up after the vacuuming announcement.  She ignored the warning then, however, it only took that one time to convince her that “Mean Mom” meant business.  She has yet to defy “the warning” since that pivotal day.  Last Son, however, acts like he doesn’t really care if some of his Legos get sucked up, and defeats “Mean Mom” by simply reminding “Mean Mom” how much Legos cost and how hard it is to make sure every single last tiny Lego is picked up, thus delaying immediate vacuuming.  

Even after the second announcement, Last Child will still be picking up or playing when the vacuum, whining through the door (The decibel level on a Dyson is a tad high), starts sucking up baseball diamond grit, beach sand and garden dirt while dodging dirty balled up socks, pennies,etc. still laying around.  (Note: I cringe when I hear a penny or other coins sucked up.  It’s not like a penny is worth much, but I will retrieve them.  Can’t stand the idea of money going into the landfill knowingly.)  Last Child frantically tries to guess my next move and actually picks up potential victims and flings them into the nearest corner of his room. Before I start to vacuum that corner, Last Child dives in front of me and flings the victims into already vacuumed areas, thus avoiding accidental suck up by “Mean Mom.” He has experienced the moment of panic when he missed something and heard the tink-tink-tink of “something” being sucked up.  Okay, I admit I have filtered through dust, dog hair, dirt, sand, and all the other gross human flake that gets sucked up, searching for tiny Lego Star Wars guns and helmets.  But if you have ever tried to replace these Lego parts, you know they are worth more than the pennies and dimes I willingly pick out.

If it bugs me so much, then why don’t I “make” the kids do the vacuuming? Answer: Because until I enjoy stepping on grit, or tiny Lego parts (ouch!), until I can reach a “zen moment” watching dog hair gracefully float in the air billowing up behind the dog (or anyone walking by); and until I get to the point where I don’t care if someone stops by and sees my house like this, I will continue to repeat the above actions.  

My brain just popped up with Albert Einstein’s quote: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Okay, so, I ask you: Is it more insane for me to just stop vacuuming-waiting for the kids or elves to do it? Or doing what I am doing, over and over, hoping for a different result, but still having a mostly vacuumed house?