Vacuum Discovery

    I should have known what would await me when I said, "Yes, you may play with the packing peanuts, just clean them up yourself when you are done."
    M got the toys up off the rug, I had pity on him and sent him outside to play with B, maybe I had pity on myself; working "with" him to finish cleaning requires more sleep than I’m getting.  I had a brain wave that a higher setting on the beater bar might allow the vacuum to pick up the styrofoam without just scooting it all over the rug in static charged chaos.  That worked!  That actually worked!  I was very impressed.
    Then K woke up.  I put her in the Ellaroo carrier in the theory that she might be the only one of my children to not mind the vacuum noise, which they do to the extent that we keep my father’s old pair of hearing protectors always on the handle of the vacuum so that the kids will consent to use it occasionally.  (Dad used it when he fired his pistols at the range, but they are good for power tools also.)  "The Happiest Baby on the Block" posits that newborns have fuzzy hearing anyway and loud white noise is soothing for them.  I don’t know if that is true, but once in her carrier and listening to vacuuming, K did fall asleep.   
    I was truly impressed with myself when I vacuumed near a bouncy ball.  On the usual ‘bare floor’ setting that I use as our carpets have barely any pile, bouncy balls are safe, but on the high pile setting, the ball exploded into shards, that bounced all over the room and didn’t want to be picked up.  Vacuuming with K on my chest is easy, leaning over to pick up tiny rubber shards is not.  I just kept vacuuming until they finally co-operated.
    I guess pride goeth before the fall, even in regards to vacuums.