Transformation and Perspective

One day last week, while hiding in the coat closet, Kender discovered our old vacuum cleaner.  It’s been hiding there for many years, gathering coats instead of dust.  He decided this was going to be his new toy, and he pulled it out, hauled it to the hallway, and plugged it in.  Our first response was to take it away and try to hide it in the basement.  That did no good.  Every day, Kender goes down and finds wherever we’ve hidden the vacuum, pulls it out, and tries to haul it up the stairs, spilling the cord behind him.  Step by step, he heaves and tugs and eventually lugs the hefty machine to the top of the stairs.

Usually somebody stops him somewhere in this process, tells him no, and returns the vacuum cleaner to hiding.  Today, though, he made it all the way to the living room and found an outlet to plug it in.  I came out of the shower to find him happily sitting on the exercise bike, turning the vacuum on and off.

So I let him have it.  A couple of times today I went over and tried to show him how to vacuum properly, putting the beater bar against the floor and moving it back and forth, picking up extension cords and large pieces of trash that might be in its way.  Who knows? I thought, we could end up with a cleaner house.  He went along for a little bit, but always went back to just holding the handle sideways, finger on the trigger.

Did I mention that it is an incredibly LOUD vacuum?  This did nothing for the terrible headache that left me whimpering for a chunk of today, in pain the whole day.  I didn’t want to do anything today, nothing at all.  But I would settle for knitting in front of the TV.  So I turned that into an opportunity, challenged the kids to finish morning chores, and rented a documentary for us to watch.  Obstacle successfully converted!

Watching TV did require getting Kender away from the vacuum.  This meant our movie was continually punctuated by alternating screeching and very quiet and polite request to vacuum more.  We got a brief respite from that when Kender found the blueberries in the fridge.  As soon as the movie was over, Kender was back at the vacuum, happily making lots of non-screaming noise.

While dinner was cooking, we tried to pry Kender away from the vacuum again.  I got out a loop loom that came with our last Oak Meadow shipment and never got used, wondering if I could interest Kender in stretching the loops across the frame.  I netted a Jarod instead, while Kender huddled in a chair and fussed.  Once Jarod was off and running with the loom, I made Kender a deal: First we would read a book, then he could vacuum.  He screamed about that a few times, but then he did go get a book to read.  He screamed when I sat down to read it, but then he listened to the rest of the story.

And then he got to go vacuum.  He didn’t even want to come back into the dining room for dinner, and once we did get him to sit down, he had to take a couple of vacuuming breaks during the meal.  He’d get up and run into the living room, we’d hear the vacuum turn on for a few seconds, then he’d be back at the table, saying, “Thank you, Dad, this is a good dinner.”

When we announced bedtime, Kender went with a minimum of fussing, only asking me to please put the vacuum away for him.

I got to the end of the day feeling a little useless because of the headache and accompanying listlessness, but what did I really accomplish today? I took a shower and got dressed, I got everybody to watch some educational TV that actually sparked some good discussions, I used one of Kender’s obsessions to get some reading into him, I got Jarod started on a new craft, I got new tires for the van, and I saw Brenden’s last wrestling match of the season.  Not bad, really.

Published by solinox

I am a Wiccan priestess, a libertarian mother of triplets plus three, a wife and homeschooling mom to blind and autistic children, a fiber artist, and a Jane of All Trades, always learning and seeking to help.

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