My helper and hinderer

My mom always told me that as a mom, your biggest fear should be silence. Silence is what clued her in to my siblings playing in flour or emptying the contents of a large bean-bag (70s-era luv sac) in the other room. This is how I found Ethan the other day after I noticed that things suddenly got real quiet. He helps me clean out his closet often.

In other Ethan news: He used to be terrified of the vacuum cleaner. I would turn it on and he would scream so loud and high I could hear it over the roar of the vacuum. I would turn the machine off and he would just glare at it.

Then Ethan got to the point where he would laugh nervously when I would turn it on. It was the kind of laugh that I make when I'm watching a scary movie like, say, "I am Legend." I try to giggle during the parts when a very lonely Will Smith attempts to find his dog in a lair of slimy, rabid humans, so I'm not scared to death. It was that kind of laugh.

He still screams when I hit the switch now, but it's a shriek of pure joy. He loves the vacuum cleaner so much now that he chases it around and crawls in front of it like it's chasing him. I think he thinks of it as his pet. I keep almost running over his little fingers and toes because he tries to touch it as I'm cleaning the carpet. When I turn it off, he slowly caresses it while making an "oooooo" sound. It's super funny but really difficult to get things done around here.