Mama's helper

A couple of weeks ago the girl decided to help with the housework. When I say help, I mean vacuum. When I say vacuum, I mean if you are standing in her way, you had better hope your toes don't get sucked up.

When she finished with her voluntary helping she said, "Mama, those boys did not help me at all." How to explain that her volunteering did not make volunteers of her brothers? I'm thinking when they get married their wives will worship their sister-in-law. I expect by that time they will understand that when they see a woman doing work, they had better get up off their butts and do work too.

That was a couple of weeks ago. Nobody has vacuumed since. When I say nobody has vacuumed, I mean nobody has been able to vacuum.

Matthew and I just spent an hour replacing the vacuum belt, which broke while she was vacuuming the living room. After that we removed the bag and I had to cut it open and dig through the contents because her brothers were certain she had vacuumed up some of their legos (we all heard the terrible sound as she was vacuuming the family room). The only plastic I found belonged to some kind of toy, though not a lego, and not something that registered immediately. I also found a ballerina slipper. At least we know she isn't just targeting legos. As we were getting ready to replace the bag, the head of an orange and blue dinosaur fell out the bottom of the vacuum. That is what the mysterious piece of plastic belonged to, and probably what broke the belt. We put it all back together and I started to finally vacuum the family room, but the vacuum didn't sound right. We took it apart and checked the hose, but couldn't detect any blockage. Put it back together and tried again. Again it didn't quite work right. This time Matthew removed the hose completely and stuck a hanger down it. At last. The body of the orange dinosaur. But wait, that wasn't all. There was also a 1"x3" piece of wood in there. That must have been the horrible sound in the family room. Not a lego after all.

I think I'm going to ask the girl to give us a good thirty minute warning when she wants to help the next time. The boys might actually be motivated to pick up their stuff, since I am NOT sifting through a vacuum cleaner bag again. And I will be investing in lots of vacuum belts.