Auburn Gal Always

She wants to vacuum.

That’s not quite it.

She WANTS to VACUUM!

Now, I’m sure there are some folks out there that find some form of enjoyment in this necessary task. I appreciate the results it gives, but don’t get any specific enjoyment from the process.

The end justifies the means. That’s it for me.

But DD WANTS to VACUUM. Whenever I am taking on this drudgery, she is right on my heels. “Can I do it now, Mommy? Can I please? Can I? Can I? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeeease!”

I am now on the very well-trodden path of all the other mothers in time. Do I hurry through my cleaning and get it done as quickly as possible so that I can move on to the rest of my day’s work and deny her (gasp!) the joy (??) of using Mommy’s vaccum cleaner? Or do I hand it over and help her maneuver the behemoth around and not beat the furniture to kindling?

Well, I would love to say that I stop what I’m doing and allow her to do the job. Sometimes I do. I’m not a complete jerk. But I do love to help her do things she wants to do. And with Mommy’s help, she does a pretty good job, considering the vacuum is as tall as she is and weighs more than she.

I think what really puzzles me more than the desire to vacuum is that she wants to do what I do. She wants more than most anything else to be like me. Me. Not Kim Possible. Not Raven. Not Cinderella or Mulan. Me. For someone who has struggled to like who she is, it is beyond comprehension that anyone, even my own daughter, would want to be like me.

But in the midst of helping my 5 year-old try to vacuum my house, I’m beginning to see that if SHE can want to be like me, then maybe there’s something about me I can like too. Just maybe.

It seems that when we teach others, we can learn something too.

But here’s a little secret of mine… I want to be just like her.