Roomba

Well, it took a couple of months, but now the girls no longer shriek when the Roomba gets turned on. For a while, the quickest way to a: get the girls to run screaming to their mother and b: pick everything off the floor really quick, was for me to make a grand entrance (preferably Saturday morning) and annouce that I was turning Roomba on in their rooms.

First Ellis would cry that Roomba would vacuum up her dolls. Millie would cry that everything she loved is under her bed and that's where Roomba likes to go.

We reached a turning point last Saturday when Roomba was cleaning Ellis's room and Ellis came up and said that she would like an apple to eat while she sat on her bed to watch Roomba clean her room. And she did- for 45 minutes. Millie was slightly traumatized when Roomba began beeping and announcing "Error, change brushes" really loudly in her room. It turns out it had sucked up her jelly ring- but it was ok and Millie wore it proudly.

So, in short, the Roomba is awesome. It goes all around and under the dining room table (like a dog!), under the beds, and doesn't fall down the stairs. It got stuck once downstairs under our entertainment center and once under Ellis's bed on her matresss lining- but it figures it out if it gets a rug, magazine or drapes and reverses and lets it go. Since Jackie likes detail cleaning things with toothpicks (not being sarcastic), she even loves cleaning out its brushes when it's done with it's cycle (about 25 minutes per room). It's the pet we will never have.