Frustrated with the $3 bargain vacuum cleaner I bought at a thrift store, my husband came home with a new, fancy vacuum of the future, with all the bells and whistles. When I tried it out last night, it quickly caught the attention of my son, who wanted to “help.”
So I handed him the reins and he helped for quite a while. Of course, every 30 seconds he had to stop and put the vacuum cleaner “in four-wheel drive.” He must have pushed every button and used every setting on the device, though I never saw a 4WD, he is confident it does have one.
He is a little manly man. Nearly every day, he walks up to me displaying his arm muscles and grunting—“Look at me, mom, I’m a big, strooooong boy.”
He sure knows how to have fun too. Lately, he wants me to be right beside him, in the middle of the action as he plays. So rather than follow him around, I plopped down on the grass near the dinosaur toys. It wasn’t long before I spotted a big “Avocado” floatie laying in the yard near the kiddie pool, so I grabbed that. And do you know—laying in that floatie on the carpet grass, under the oak tree with some country music on—it was almost as relaxing as floating down the Frio!? Tucker made sure to plop down on me very ungracefully every so often, so I even felt the rapids.
Granted, I’m sure I looked plenty crazy to drivers passing by that day, laying in a big, green avocado in my yard. I get a little joy out of knowing it must have made those people all smile too though, even if they were shaking their heads.
This afternoon, Tucker put on a Beatles record, and coerced me into dancing with him. Of course, he wanted me to hold him and dance, and he is very energetic, so he requests lots of spinning and dipping and bouncing. So it was a “hard day’s dance,” but I haven’t laughed so hard in a good while as he bobbed his head side to side wildly and I tried to hang onto my big, strong goofiest dancing partner. He only let me rest as long as it took for the record to spin into the next song, and to him, every new song was more exciting than the next. I am sweating now after being forced to dance to practically the whole Beatles record. Time for some Avocado floatie time soon, I think. Who knew avocados would make such a comfy floatie either?
For all of you out there who will be vacuuming today—don’t forget to put it in four-wheel drive!