::let's roomba::

I have never liked vacuuming. Architectdad was always the one pushing that horribly loud machine around the house. Now that I am the mom of a crawling, soon-to-be-walking, baby, I am obsessed about cleaning!

As a fellow mom, V is even one step ahead of me. She even steam cleans every week! To save me some time and grief, she let me borrow her Roomba vacuuming robot. I love this thing! Granted, it is no Dyson. But man, it sure is nice to turn the Roomba loose while O and I are getting our Starbucks and come home to a cleaner house.

The older Roomba models have a small bin capacity, so if you have dogs, you'll need to empty the bin often. There are models with the Intellibin option, which will let you know when the bin is full. Also, there are many parts in which dog hair and people hair can become entangled. The Roomba holds its battery charge for quite a long time. For a 250 sq ft space, the Roomba could definitely go around the room multiple times. Some models will also return to the charging dock on its own when the juice runs out. You can even preset a cleaning schedule for while you are out of the house.

There is one little glitch that bothers me: the Roomba gets caught in the tassles of our Turkish rugs all the time and can't seem to get itself out of the mess. I've come home a couple of times to find it stuck on a rug and making a pathetic little whining noise.

A brand new Roomba model has just been released. It has a completely different look, a bigger bin and more suction. The company also claims that it now has an added "anti-tangle technology." We plan on getting one, so look for my review soon.

Look for remanufactured older models on Amazon.com for a very reasonable price.