Toddler Tales: Ode To Goo Gone

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My husband gave me the night off of parenting. ( Naturally, after dinner had been cooked, served, cleaned up and the kids prepared for their bath, by moi.)

I nip off like a thief in the night (at 7p) to a couple of stores before wandering back home about 10p, to be greeted as I walk up the stairs to see my 2.5 year old son in the dimly lit hallway with red hands and lips. I thought he’d found a disposable razor and cut himself, however, being that he was quite cheerful, decided to go into our bathroom to review the situation.

(Walking past my sleeping husband, snoring merrily away.)

He, our toddler, had gotten into my scarce supply of make up and written all over two walls, the bath tub, the sink cabinet and toilet with one lipstick and one eye liner. Oh, and there is quite a Picasso on the carpeting too. The lipstick was a cosmetic error , as in, after I got home with it about 5 years ago, I never wore it because I don’t think the whore/clown look is overly appealing on me.
Goo Gone took everything off the walls and porcelin outstandingly. We will have to paint, but we have been meaning to for 7.5 years. Let’s just say that we are now motivated to do the job.

The carpet, more than likely, is beyond salvaging. Considering it was one of those large remnant pieces that cost maybe $50 ( bought to keep the room warmer because the bathroom is very cold otherwise), and considering this child could have run amok in the house with the weapons du jour
( or worse), I think we (and when I say “we” I mean “my husband” )got off easily.

So, my total lost to my cosmetics is: $4.00 for eyeliner.

My husband, naturally, is very annoyed with himself.

Share time.

2

I sympathize.

Not 3 weeks ago, I stupidly left my purse on the kitchen table. While I was folding the clothes from the dryer, my darling daughter ascended the table, removed everything from the purse and focused on the two tubes of lipstick in there. (“Forget the blistex, look at the preeeeety colors!”)

Fortunately, she was unable to dial them up, so she just stuck her fingers in and mashed them to smithereens. I do have a smudge on the wall and her new pajamas are permanently stained, but she looks nice in “Vintage Wine” anyway.

Speaking of painting, I had the two large walls in my living room fauxed in a toffee/caramel/burgandy, it not only looks stunning, but hides pretty much everything.

3

The worst thing my 13 month old has done so far was manage to get her diaper off while I was in the shower.

The diaper was ahem- “full” in the ickiest possible sense.

As I sauntered down the hallway, foolishly thinking nothing could be wrong (since my little princess was safely ensconced in her crib) I thought “My god, what is that smell?”

It was: her “onesie” jammies, her crib, her sheets, her toys, her stuffed animals, her blanket my favorite aunt crotched for her, my wall, my carpet, and, covered head to toe, my daughter.
I still cannot figure out how she got it off under her clothes and I am so not looking foreward to her future discoveries.

We still call her the Poopapotomus :slight_smile:

4

Sigh. My daughter has developed a thing recently for lip gloss. She comes by it honestly, though–I’m a gloss junkie.

She’ll sneak in to our bedroom and go through the pockets of my coat or my jeans (yeah, she knows where I keep it). I’ll find her a few minutes later with about half an inch on her face. I gave her one for herself a few weeks ago, in the hopes that she would quit pestering me for mine. By the time I got home, it was gone. I think she ate it.

My one-year-old son is, so far, not a problem. But he did finally “discover” the part of his anatomy that makes him different from his sister. And just like every other male on the planet is when they find that thing, well, he was captivated.

Sigh.

5

Goo Gone has saved me at least $100 in damage deposit money, and probably more. The double-sided sticky tape on my dorm room door would have been $50 right there (and the Goo Gone even colored in the scratches I made trying to remove the tape with more conventional methods.) I married the man who introduced me to Goo Gone. It has most recently removed crayon from our apartment walls and stickers from my daughter’s little chairs (she “decorated”, and then decided she didn’t like the look, leaving a sticky, nasty mess.)

6

Looked once, looked again, then figured out what this meant.

7

Took one inadvertant nap while I was supposed to be watching the boys. They were about 2 and 4. They got into my model paints – lots of bright enamels. They were multi-colored, along with one wall. The worst was the carpet in the living room – gold, deep-pile with a big blue stain.

Goo-Gone worked for most of it, but we broke out the napthalene for the carpet. It ended up with a mild green stain – got the deposit back, though.

Mrs. Danalan never really forgave me for this one – it still comes up, 15 years later.

8

Hardly on scale with some of what’s posted here, but last week I was sleeping in when I heaard a gurgling sound next to me. The little one (20 months) was busy holding a can of Coke upside down over the night table.

Today he was being too quiet so I did a quick check on him (he frequently goes into his room for a minute or two and then comes out with a new toy to play with in the living room). He had gotten a roll of toilet paper and had unspooled the entire roll in his room.

Got to keep an eye on those buggers.

9

Just wait until the day that he dumps the whole roll of toilet paper into the toilet, then pulls it back out and then strings it all over the house. Ah, the memories…

My children aren’t content with drawing on the walls with crayon or lipstick. No, my children have to use permanent black marker on my walls. That stuff wouldn’t come off the wall if you used a nuclear bomb.

10

Tonight, the kiddo decided to draw on the wall with “bronze” crayon.

I tried a dry towel (works on the hardwood floor!) a wet towel (works on Dipsy’s face) and then I thought of this thread!

I had a teeny bottle of Goo Gone in the junk drawer, it took the crayon right off! After I washed the spot with a grease cutting soap and let it dry, it’s spotless!

Thanks Shirley!

11

Our youngest (28 months) is showing signs of becoming a clean freak. She is the type of child who, if she walks past a pair of shoes, will stop to line them up. She also requires a damp washcloth at the table so she can properly clean her fingers during the meal.

I have caught her attempting to scrub the toilet (she was doing so properly, with the toilet brush; I just don’t consider it a job for a 2yo) and scoop out the cat box (again, she had the proper tools: plastic grocery bag and scoop.) Most recently, my husband noticed condensation inside the little window at the top of the television remote. She was questioned, and replied, very proudly, “Nora clean!” Apparently, there were fingerprints.

We spend a lot of time explaining to her the difference between “mommy’s jobs” and “Nora’s jobs.”

12

Both this and your username made me do a doubletake. My husband and I have this whole “-apotomus” thing that we do… well it’s explained here: http://fathom.org/opalcat/evolution.html

13

Oh! Hey, so you’d feel right at home in our bedroom. My son found a Sharpie permanent marker and drew on ALL the walls… AND the closet doors… he circled every outlet, plus made a mural about 4 feet by 4 feet between two of the windows… Oy. We’re gonna put some sealant over it and paint over it before we move out. Til then, it’s art.

14

Ha! Sounds like she’d get along perfectly with my son. We were at my mom’s house in Arizona, and she gave him a squirtgun to play with. What did he do? Started cleaning the sliding glass doors with it.

15

Oh my! My kids didn’t quite cause that much damage. My daughter drew a small smilie face on her wood closet door (I guess sanding it down and restaining it is the only solution to this problem), and my son found a red permanent marker and drew a whole stickman family, complete with pets, on the wall inside of his closet. Of course, I have crayon and pen marks all over the place, but those will come out. It is just a matter of getting off my lazy ass and cleaning them off.

16

Mamapotamus, I had a “what is that smell” moment also. We lived in a small one bedroom apartment. The twins had seperate cribs, but one would always climb out and join the other.

So my husband and I are watching T.V. in the bedroom while the kids supposedly slept. “What is that?” my husband says, wrinkling his nose. I scrambled out of the bed.

It was all over the place. The walls, the crib, the floor. I realized then the true meaning of the words “shit-eating grin” And the two of them were just giggling like. . like. . .infants! All you could see through the foul smelling browness were four big, bright eyes and two sets of grinning teeth.

The good thing is that now they’re 13 and I get to remind them of this every other month.

17

I would like to add that my son is known around this house as **The Regurgitator **

It started at 8 months and would hit about 2-5 times a week for a long time, then went away. And occassionally surfaces to really annoy us.

He pukes when he gets upset. He only really gets upset when it is bedtime. The beige carpet in his bedroom is bleached out in large spots from the acid from the vomit. Cleaning up vomit is nothing for me. ( He likes to tell you over and over again, after the deed, “Mama, I throw up!”)

However, I am a genius

We were dog sitting my in laws dog. ( Great dog, well mannered and a perfect gentleman) however, he likes to eat the grass at our house, and that naturally makes him hork up large wads of partially digested grass * on my recently scrubbed living room carpets * (that have had blood, puke, piss, poop, grease,coca cola, tar and dirt on them. All but the coke stain came out, for the most part.[sub]we are getting new carpet one of these days [/sub]) Then the rental dog barfs. It leaves a large grass stain on my carpet that looks like an aerial view of the Grand Canyon. Two cans of Resolve barely put a dent into the damage.

The next time my son pukes ( weeks later) I get the bright idea to carry a handful of puke downstairs and put it on the horked up grass stain. *You know what? * it bleached the carpet to a lesser level of annoyance. Repeat this a few times and the stain is nearly gone.

I think I am going to market this as " Yack in a Can".

18

OMG! That is so gross!