The Vacuum

When AJ was a baby, he was VERY sensitive to sounds. Some might say he was even oversensitive. He was scared of many toys that made noises while all the other kids seemed to flock to them. I think he was scarred early on by a particular incident, but regardless even before that he was nervous and freaked out around certain sounds.
He was not surprisingly totally terrified of the vacuum. It was big, loud, moved around and had a light. Whoa! We had to make sure we were both home whenever we used it so that one of us could distract and comfort him while the other cleaned, or one of us would just vacuum (usually Andy) while one of us would leave the house with AJ (usually me). This was not ideal, but since we're not neat freaks to begin with it's not like we had to deal with it daily or anything. Thank God we didn't have a cat or something!
As time went on, AJ became more and more accustomed to the sounds of the house, the neighborhood and the world. He stopped screaming every time Andy used the coffee grinder or I used the blender, and he would even play by himself with hid scary "noisy toys". After a while he didn't mind the vacuum as long as he couldn't see it, and finally he would be OK with it as long as we prepped him that it was coming out.

Knowing all of that back-story will make you appreciate this pic and video clips from last Fall even more. They were certainly amazing to us!

AJ took over from Daddy and started using the vacuum on his own!

What a helper! I love when he starts to vacuum the seatbelt

and then his own shirt...and he's so serious.

And then he realized the vacuum can also pick up rocks! :)

And as for something really recent, today he asked me if he could use the vacuum after spilling rice all over the floor, and he regularly hijacks the cleaning lady's vacuum too. :)