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Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The vacuum

While I was in college and just newly married, I worked with a woman who talked about how she had such a busy schedule, that she had to vacuum the house at 5:00 a.m. sometimes.

We're not talking about vacuuming the main areas of the house either away from family bedrooms.  She would vacuum her children's bedrooms before the rising of the sun while they were still sleeping.  She said that she had trained her children from a young age to just sleep through it.

Since I was in college, and could still recall my teen-age years quite vividly, I remember thinking I would have hated my mother vacuuming my bedroom at 5:00 a.m.  My mother actually hadn't vacuumed my room for years by the time I was  teenager, leaving that little task to me, but the thought of someone entering my bedroom at 5:00 a.m. with a roaring hungry vacuum sounded quite unpleasant.

I thought of this woman and her vacuuming habits as I entered Chance's room while he lay asleep this morning.  His little sister had just dumped a bag of sour candy upside down next to the bed releasing  a cascade of sugary powder onto the floor.

Chance slept blissfully on unaware that his sister, his brother and me were busy encircling the bed and sucking up the mess.

The difference though between me and my old co-worker, was that I would have welcomed Chance getting up to the sound of the vacuum.  The morning was getting on and it was time to get ready for church.

Waking Chance when he is fast asleep is a little like waking the dead, and on this particular morning, he was really tired.  He had played in soccer games, run a 6K at the school and stayed out late playing night games with friends over the weekend.

The vacuum did not wake Chance up obviously, so his brother and sister and me had to get out the big guns.......our squeaky swords, a cap pistol(not loaded) and a  little squirt bottle. Between the three of us, we  eventually got Chance  awake and ready to face the world.

It was not just Chance that needed the big guns this morning either.  His brother needed the same treatment to get him moving and he can hear just fine when we call him. Perhaps we should have tried the vacuum with him first:)

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