It all started Saturday morning. Joel went to watch football with my Dad, so Dean and I were on our own all day. Dean was happily watching cartoons in the morning, so I decided to take a quick shower. When I got out, Dean was very proud to show me some artwork he had been working on during my shower....see, he decided it would be cool to color ALL OVER the living room carpet with a hot pink highlighter!!!! I about died. So if you have kids and you have carpet, go to Home Depot and buy yourself a gigantic bottle of this stuff....
It took some time and some serious elbow grease, but no more pink marker in the living room carpet!!! (We've also used this to get out squished blueberries, throw-up, baby diarrhea, coffee, soda, and just about any and all food products you can think of). It really does work. So, crisis averted. Saturday proceeded with no more emergency clean-ups!!!
Enter Sunday afternoon. Joel was laying on the couch watching TV, Dean had just gotten up from his nap and I was doing some work on the computer. (I will only mention the fact once that Joel was in the SAME ROOM as Dean during all of this.....{insert the sound of me loudly clearing my throat}). I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and Dean was standing in front of the island holding a Sharpie (yes, a PERMANENT MARKER), which he had happily used to color all over the cabinet door and drawer faces of the island....Here's his beautiful handiwork:
I was able to resist the urge to physically harm my husband (who was about 20 feet away while Dean rummaged through the drawers to find the marker), although I must say it was difficult. I was convinced we were either going to have to replace the cabinets and drawers (and imagining that the builder probably used some rare discontinued cabinets, meaning we'd have to redo the entire kitchen) or we'd have to strip and re-stain what we had. Joel decided to get out the magic erasers that we never use (yes, I've seen the frightening e-mails with pictures of children with chemical burns from the magic erasers). I very colorfully told him what I thought of that idea, but he gave it a shot anyway. And surprisingly, the magic eraser really did magically erase permanent marker from our cabinets without damaging the cabinet or wood or stain in any way!!! Mr. Clean saved the day!!! 
So, even though I'm proud that I am environmentally and health conscious about our household products, I'm SOOOO glad we happened to have these 2 not-so-healthy items on hand this weekend (I'm pretty sure water and vinegar wouldn't have helped much with either problem!!).
And I'm happy to say it looks like Dean will live to see his 2nd birthday after all! :-)
2 comments:
Those magic erasers are so great. James uses them to clean the boat all the time and it is amazing what they remove.
I have to admit that I don't use anything natural for cleaning in this house. They don't work! I haven't used the magic eraser, but I've never had the occasion for it (knock on wood) but I do believe that those pictures of the chemical burns etc are an urban legend.
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