Chaos is Little Lion’s special kind of order. He likes his stuff all spread out. It makes him happy, because this way he keeps running into fun things over and over many times a day. This is why it’s no fun to clean, because it’s anti-happiness (unless they got to you).

Anyway, we needed to vacuum and had to clear Little Lion’s floor shelf completely to get it done right. We quickly shuffled his stuff to his toybox and, before he could martial a counter-attack, hauled out Dragon the vacuum cleaner as fast as we could.

When he was even littler, Little Lion would stand behind the vacuum and use it like a walker to get around–but that was when it was Hummer the vacuum cleaner, his cool friend. But this day, for some reason, things had changed. He and Hummer weren’t chummy anymore. The power came on, he screamed horribly, and teeter-toddled to the couch as quickly as he could. Mommy, who was safe on high ground, helped him clamber up, and in safety he wailed his discontent for a few minutes.

It took a little while for him to calm down. But slowly, with the Dragon still roaring around the room, he got up the courage to get down and venture a little closer, only to run away again if it turned in his direction.

Finally he mustered the courage. The next time the Dragon turned his way, he started stomping his little feet, screamed “Buuuuh!”, and threw his chubby hands down on the Dragon’s head. Then he began pushing as hard as he could until the Dragon backed up in retreat.

A few times of this and he discovered the heart of the beast, and that it had a power button.

Now it takes a long, long time to vacuum the house because Little Lion keeps slaying the Dragon.