Silly Putty......The Scourge of Fabrics Everywhere

This evening my husband and I tucked our children into bed and left them in the care of my sis in law while we ventured out to spend some quality time together doing laundry! Yes, laundry. Our dryer is broken, so we went into town to use the dryers at the apt complex that my sister manages. When we arrived home we found our sweet three year old cuddled on the couch with his cousin Miranda.

While we were putting things away a teary eyed Miranda came in with her baby doll, covered in green silly putty. History....this doll.....Lucy, has been Miranda's baby doll since she was one year old. Her daddy got it for her on a quick trip to the store and brought it to her during a short hospital stay she endured. This doll has been through 9 years of some serious loving. She is faded and worn, but is still and always will be a treasure. The silly putty came from another of our nieces birthday party this afternoon.

When I saw the doll, I tried to remain calm, for Miranda's sake. Stephen tossed the doll in the freezer and then we pulled off the excess putty. Most came off, but there was still a large stained area where there wasn't really any to remove, but the color and tiny bits remained. I hopped online and found a fix. Alcohol. And of course, I'm out. But I do have some alcohol prep wipes! I fetched the box of those and went to work on the face, neck and chest of Lucy. Within minutes she was looking great and smelling like she had just come from outpatient surgery. The Westfamily Surgical Center got 5 stars from Miranda, Tracy and Lucy!

Miranda's tears were gone and she was ready to go back to bed. Then she found more silly putty. Only this time, it was in Daniel's hair. A very large, mostly irremovable chunk of green silly putty was smashed into the back of his beautiful hair. After a tug or two it became apparent that alcohol wasn't to play a part in this surgery...we had to go straight for the razor. Okay, not a razor really, but the clippers anyway. No guard either, we couldn't get one under the mess. Daniel was not happy as Daddy held him and I preformed the first cut. It came off rather quickly, with only three or four quick snips but lots of yelling and some flailing about.


Luckily, Daniel's curls had been cut off several months ago. Had this happened to Aven, who still has curls, I would not have been able to just shave off his hair all the way to the skin! It wasn't ideal with Dan Dan either, but at least his hair is mostly short to began with. Now we will just have a story to tell about why he has a bald spot. Surely we can come up with some interesting stories like he had a grey spot so we cut it out instead of dyeing it, or he chronically rubs that spot until the hair falls out or he wanted to go bald but when he felt the bare shavers he changed his mind. I could draw on some stitches and we could pretend that one of his brothers helped him sustain an injury that required a shaved head and some local anesthetic. Of course there are many more....any ideas?