The Catbird Seat

When I bought Jane’s very first box of crayons, I decided to buy the “washable” kind.

Standing in Target, I imagined accidental marks on clothes, carpet, and furniture, and considered the possibility of Jane intentionally coloring on the wall.

I shuddered at the thought of waxy crayon permanently lodged in the fibers of the carpet and in the varied texture of our walls.

So I bought the washable ones.

And yes, we have definitely had our share of stray marks on all those things. Thankfully, we’ve not had the notorious wall-drawings.

Just as the box says, they are, in fact, very washable, leaving no trace of heavy-handed orange on a T-shirt or grass green spots on the carpet.

I’ve been very pleased with our box of washable crayons.

Until recently.

It seems that washable crayons liquify when they encounter water.

This is a prized trait in a crayon when it is ground into upholstery.

It is not a prized trait when the water source is your child’s mouth. And by now, you’ve probably noticed the photos documenting this event:

As you can see, the liquified crayon spread all over poor unsuspecting Elizabeth’s face and hands.

Obviously, she’s quite unbothered by this fact.

The good news is that even washable crayons are non-toxic and are wiped off of skin pretty easily, although there was a little staining. The bad news is that Elizabeth won’t get to play with crayons until either (a) we get some original, wax ones or (b) she stops putting everything into her mouth.

And one other thing…

Why do they always pick the RED ones?

Filed under: General, Catbird, SAHM, Elizabeth on August 29th, 2006