The Shark

If you have hardwood floors in your kitchen/eating area and you have children, you need a Shark. It is a "cordless sweeper." But here's the clincher: because there's no cord, and it's lightweight... even a 4-year-old can run it! This is a daily job four our 5-year old. She also can differentiate between all the charging cords in the kitchen junk drawer (crazy how many there are!) in order to locate the correct one for plugging in the vacuum to charge after it dies.

It all began because Emily decided she prefers her Rice Crispies with no milk, which results in rice crispies everywhere. (And also resulted in Abby prefering her cereal w/o milk). So as opposed to outlawing no-milk cereal, I decided the perfect solution was just to have her clean up when she was done. It was either cereal with milk, or run the Shark immediately after breakfast. Now she vacuums the hardwoods almost daily (regardless of cereal choice). It is also extremely handy for a quick once-over on the carpets or the entryway rug. Have you seen their infomercial? (I hadn't prior to buying mine at Target...I just knew I didn't like sweeping often). The little vacuum is really quite good. Cheerios, pine needles, dried rice, dried play dough bits... you name it :) I highly recommend it. That, or get a dog to clean your kitchen floors (which hasn't been completely ruled out yet).