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So let me talk birthday presents for a minute here.  I've received some pretty exciting ones in my life.  The Barbie Dreamhouse.  Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on record.  The much coveted Cabbage Patch Doll.  And then there was the first Nintendo and how it kicked butt compared to our Atari.

Now that I've aged myself for all to see, I'll tell you about my most recent birthday present from my parents - the Roomba.  I swear I opened it up and it might as well have been the Dreamhouse all over again I was so giddy.   Because I'll tell you all this much - Barbie and Skipper riding on that Dreamhouse elevator was nothing compared to the feeling I got after pressing the "clean" button and watching my house be vaccummed while I parked myself on the couch.

So how does it work? 

The Roomba's essentially a robot vaccum.  It programs itself to zip around your house and pick up all sorts of stuff.  You do have to do some prep work: clearing the floors of all toys and larger objects (hey, it doesn't work miracles!)  It's great in our house - we have two cats (one of which is a long-haired), me (I shed as much as the long-haired) and a 3-year-old who leaves more dust behind him than Charlie Brown's buddy Pig-Pen.  The Roomba picks it all up. 

I typically set it off in the morning when we're headed out for the day.  Close the front door - come back to a clean floor.  Or I'll set it off at night after we all go upstairs.  Either way, I love how easy it makes my life and it's well worth the money.

Of course it's not totally maintenance-free - every few cleanings you have to take it apart and clean its insides, but the time it takes me to do this (10 minutes) is well worth the time saved that I would have been vaccumming.  We have the "Scheduler" downstairs and the "Discovery" upstairs.  I would have been fine with the Discovery on both floors but I do know people with the Scheduler who love that added feature.  (Set it to start at random times during the day.)  Either way, you can check them out on Amazon.

Incidentally, we call ours "Rosie," after the Jetsons house cleaner.  My Mom started the nickname as a joke but my eldest son picked right up on it and regularly asks to "turn on Rosie."