dust bunnies

Many things in our life have changed in the last 13 months. Some things, like being able to sleep late, vanished immediately. Some things, like making sure goodies are put away at our hip level, will turn into things being put totally out of sight when she gets older.

Now that we have a toddler, the ability to slack on vacuuming is a new change we cannot ignore. Dust bunnies, pieces of dead grass, forgotten thrown bites of goodies hidden under the high chair - any little piece of anything that can be picked up and eaten will be eaten. Our days of being lax on the floors are behind us. In order to cut down on unplanned non-nutritious snacking, we're going to have to increase the frequency of our floor cleaning.

Vacuuming now is not an easy task. I carry baby in a sling and vacuum while The Hater goes around in front of us and moves furniture out of the way and around so that I can get under and around it. The process takes us about 30 minutes, but it's a really really really long half hour. Baby likes it - the whole thing totally zones her out. However, she's about outgrown the sling, so I'm not entirely sure how much longer we'll be able to make this game plan work.

I've tried the dust mop to pick up between the vacuum-adventures. It's okay in a pinch, and it's certainly better than just letting baby feast on the dregs... but it's not very effective. Because of this we've become the family who makes a concerted effort to steer baby away from the bigger dust bunnies towards the end of the week, the family who believes that a little cat hair never hurt anybody. (Actually, we tell her it's roughage.)