In ten years I'll have to break out the blackmail pictures to get this done

Rare is the day when I get some tangible benefit from parenting. That's not to say I don't love it, of course -- I do. Hell, the sheer hilarity of it is often reward enough.* But when you drill down to the very core of this whole deal, it just isn't about me. Parental satisfaction is almost always about the intangibles. So when the ordinary course of childhood intersects fortuitously with my own agenda, it's a cookie.

Trailhead Kid has developed an obsession with vacuuming.

And not just the easy carpet vacuuming that Mr. T and I don't mind doing. Nope. He likes to vacuum our hardwood floors with the attachments. Sweet.

And so I sit, on my underworked butt, typing up this post while the kid sucks up the dog hair downstairs.

This can't last long.




*Except for the days when both Mr. T and I are violently ill and the kid thinks it's a good idea to climb all over us.