Dirt Devil distress

I’ve had a bit of a crunchy carpet lately. You know, the kind with crushed Cheerios and crumbled leaves and dry grass. It’s not that I don’t want to vacuum all that mess up; it’s that I can’t without a total meltdown from Ladybug. All of a sudden, she’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner.

I don’t know where her fear came from. One day she was fine, pushing her toy vacuum alongside me; the next day she’s howling when she sees me wheeling it out of storage. She’ll run in the opposite direction, tears pouring down her cheeks, pleading “No, Mommy! No, no, no!” as if she were afraid I might accidently vacuum her up.

For the last few weeks, I’ve only been able to vacuum when my husband can distract Ladybug in the backyard. But seeing as how she follows me closer than my own shadow, that makes the chore even more difficult to accomplish.

So I’ve tried holding her while I vacuum to show her there’s nothing to be afraid of, but that has only left me with bruised hips as Ladybug tries to kick free. I’ve offered to let her push the vacuum with me, making my own vacuum noises without turning it on, but that doesn’t do much to get rid of the ground-in dirt.

Ladybug’s kooky phobia is natural for a toddler, or so I’ve heard. I read an article the other day about one mother’s challenge to potty train her son. He’d scream anytime he got close to a toilet. Seems he was afraid the elephants in the drain would eat him.

Pachyderms in the potty, man-eating vacuums. Geez, it must be hard to be a toddler.

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