For my birthday in April, Tim bought me a robot vacuum. I chuckled a bit, as I’ve had other items on my wish list for far longer but the techie in him must have made that gadget jump out at him because that was his first pick.
We named him “Mo” and considered him our “quarantine pet” (because there was no way in H we were going out to buy a puppy). The fact that Mo was Tim’s top pick for my birthday present was a bonus because he tackled all the setup and programming of our new addition.
And what a great addition Mo has been. He runs around the house at 3 o’clock every morning dusting up the mess beneath our couches that in our pre-Mo years only got cleaned up once every month at best because it requires moving furniture.
Another bonus: I only have to sweep the kitchen once a day.
Final bonus: my kids actually pitch in to pick their stuff off the floor at the end of each night, motivated by the horrifying possibility that Mo might eat up their precious earbuds.
Best quarantine pet ever.
We’ve settled in with our cleaner floors and have quite forgotten what life was like before Mo.
In other words, we’ve begun to take him for granted.
So, of course, in Mo’s indignation at being under appreciated, he starts malfunctioning. Each morning for the past week, he has failed to make it back to his docking station.
Not because he got tangled up in a cord somewhere, or stuck under a piece of furniture. Nope, the lazy bum ends up smack dab in the middle of the floor, as if he’s forgotten his purpose in life.
And suddenly I’m stepping all over crumbs on my kitchen floor. I’m painfully aware of the dust that’s collecting under my couch. I’m considering adding vacuuming back to the kids chore rotation, because how else will we keep the downstairs carpets clean?
Mo might as well have been named “Mom”. How much of what I do gets taken for granted day in and day out? Heck, I’ve been at it for so long that I’m confident no one even knows what I do anymore, let alone wonders how they would do without it all?
Things just “magically” happen around here.
Most of the time it’s not a big deal. Until I catch the kids complaining about my less-desirable traits and have to remind them how awesome I am. Or until I notice them sitting around on their butts and feel inclined to invite them to pitch in. That usually helps them develop a deeper sense of gratitude for the things that I do on a daily basis.
No, I’m not one to be a martyr.
I also know that gratitude does not just bless the giver, but the receiver. So, since I am often on the receiving end as well, this little experience with Mo reminds me to appreciate all the small acts of service from which I benefit.
Turns out picking crumbs up off the floor is kind of a big deal. Who knew?
Walter got me one a few years ago. I had hopes that I would see my cat ride on top of it, but he merely tolerates it and would prefer it not exist. I also had the issue where it can’t find home base or it kicked its own home base in a weird way that it couldn’t get back on. We used a couple command strips to hold down the base and moved it away from the furniture and it seems to have helped. I find I have to use it while I am not at home or I will start to micromanage: “Why do you keep going to that corner?” And there are times I just take out the vacuum, which is much faster than watching it amble around. But the one benefit of having it was that it did prompt Walter to pick things up off the floor more. I can just pretend I am going to send it out and he will start picking stuff up. 😂
This year for our 15 year anniversary and joint birthday gifts Walter got us a robot lawnmower we call Robocrop. Both of us hate mowing the lawn and it is nice to have one less chore. It also has some growing pains (like getting stuck on a slight slope between us and the neighbor’s yard) but at least so far it has stayed on our property.
A Robo-lawn mower?!! That sounds incredible. We’ll have to look into that once we experience a labor shortage…right now the three oldest girls take turns.