That Time My Husband Took Our Family Planning Into His Own Hands Without Consulting Me First
Because this is not the way I thought we would be expanding our family.
I would’ve told you our family was complete.
Family Planning 101.
Husband, me,
Two girls, now both away at college.
And the cliché empty nest puppy.
Husband apparently had other ideas.
He took matters into his own hands this week, walking in the house with our new bundle of joy.
The one I didn’t know we needed.
“I got us a robot!” he announced in th egeeky joy of an IT geek.
“A robot?”
“Yeah, one of those vacuum cleaners that runs 24/7 to help keep this filthy house clean.”
Looking around at the dog, the woods surrounding our house, I couldn’t argue with the filthy.
The robot?
I wasn’t sold.
Husband set about setting our new baby up, connecting it to our wifi.
“It needs a name!” he announced from the den.
Good gosh.
Now we’re talking pressure.
What do you name a robot?
“Is it a boy or a girl?” I yelled back.
“A boy,” he determined, though I’m not sure if that was based on scientific fact or wishful thinking, as Husband has always been outnumbered by us girls.
I googled, “How to name a robot” as Husband put his new baby down on the floor and watched him go.
“It’s like watching our baby take his first steps,” he beamed proudly.
Which was only interrupted by a flurry of barking.
Puppy’s brain was about to explode as she became convinced that surely this was an alien being sent down to earth to eat us all up.
“I got this,” I said heading to the fountain of all puppy challenges, the treat jar.
Two biscuits placed strategically on the roaming vacuum cleaner and Pup went from determined protector of Mommy and Daddy from all alien life forms to “Maybe this new sibling isn’t so bad after all.”
As we all stood back and watched this crazy round contraption whirl its way around all the nooks and crannies of our downstairs, the name came to me.
“Vasco da Gama,” I announced. “His name is Vasco, after the great Portuguese explorer. Who knows the treasures he’s going to find as pokes his way around our home?
“I like it,” Husband approved.
This doesn’t mean I was totally comfortable with this new electronic member of our family.
“He’s probably sucking up our DNA, analyzing it and sending it to the Russians,” I offered. “Nobody vacuums for free. Do we really want the world to know our dirt?”
An hour in, Husband opened up Vasco. “Look at what he sucked up already,” Husband said in a mixture of amazement and disgust.
There sat a compacted rectangle of dust, dog hair, and who knows what else.
That’s all it took.
Vasco won me over.
I’m not sure who’s listening on the other side of our baby robot, but one thing’s for sure—no way to do they want any part of our home when they see the junk going on inside.
Two parents have never been so proud.
Do you have this kind of robot or some other kind of AI gadget in your home? Does it kind of freak you out? Did you name him or her?
Please weigh in in the Comments section below.
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