Helpful Mom

I had always wanted the iRobot Roomba.  After my car accident that lead to back surgery my mom bought me one.  And I am in love.  What is a Roomba?  It’s an automated floor vacuum.  It uses a rechargable battery and you just turn it on and it will vacuum your room for you.  You do have to pick up everything off the floor that you don’t want vacuumed up, and either close it in the room or use the virtual walls that come with the unit.  Virtual walls are these units that you can place in doorways or another place you want to block off so it won’t vacuum there.  We use it to block off beneath Joel’s desk because there are so many cables on the floor.  It has a cliff sensor built in so if you are cleaning at the top of stairs it won’t take a tumble.  It takes about an hour and a half to clean a room and up to three hours for it to recharge.

Some are sceptics that it won’t really work as well as vacuuming yourself might, but I am disgusted by the amount of stuff this thing picks up.  And by not having to take the time to vacuum myself the rooms end up getting vacuumed more often than if I had to do it.  Now I pick up the room before bed, turn it on and go to bed.  It vacuums the room by making spiraling pattern around the room learning the layout and then coming back to fill in.  They say every spot is gone over at least 3 times.  And the Roomba even finds it’s recharging dock and parks itself so it’s fully recharged when I get up in the morning.  So I will do things like vacuum the living room while I’m sleeping, and then start it on the family room when I leave the house in the morning, and then can set it off in our bedroom in the evening while I’m cooking dinner.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well two reasons, one is that it is an awesome time saver for moms with little ones, and two because they are on a fantastic deal on Buy.com.  They normally cost from $149.99-349 but on Buy they have remanufactured ones for $99 with free shipping.  The only negative I have about the Roomba is the hidden costs.  They have filters that need replacing every couple months, and I’ve found that the rechargable battery needs replacing about once a year.  But when compared with prices of other vacuums and the labor it saves me I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I have always made my girls bottles and sippy cups en masse.  My girls had problems latching so I pumped and used bottles, so to make it easier in the middle of the night I would make up a days worth of bottles at one time, then I could just warm one up when needed.  So naturally I did the same thing when my girls moved to sippy cups.  My youngest is on a nearly all liquid diet (her choice, not mine) and goes through 5-6 cups a day!  So I make up her cups either the evening before or that morning before leaving for the day.  Two with milk and the rest 1/2 water 1/2 juice.  Then one day I was reading (big surprise) and they went a step further by suggesting making up all the cups at once but then also putting them on the lowest shelf in the fridge so your kids can get their own drinks!  Saving you more valuable time and teaching them some independence and self reliance, and how to close the fridge door after themselves.