Oct 12 2008
Epic Fail For Daddy As Unsupervised Son Paints With Vaseline
Chrissy is the best Mom ever, so of course she deserved to take a day off for a twelve-hour scrapbooking event. I’ve been at home alone with Aiden before, but so far I haven’t had both kids at the same time by myself. Chrissy’s mom took pity on me and borrowed Aiden for the morning. That left me with Gavin, who refused to sleep, and he was cranky all morning. When Aiden came home, he went straight down for his nap. I only had one kid to keep track of, but I was still feeling overwhelmed.
Then Gavin dozed off, finally, just before Aiden was supposed to wake up from his nap. Unfortunately, I dozed off as well (worst Dad ever). Aiden woke up from his nap and, unsupervised in his room, inexplicably dumped half a jar of Vaseline on his head. He just reached in and grabbed huge handfuls of petroleum jelly and smashed them into his hair. Consequently, all of his bedding, stuffed animals and books (that he first dragged into bed with him) were coated in a layer of greasy goop.
I woke up about an hour after Aiden’s nap should have ended. When I ran in to check on him, he was still in bed, surrounded by the oily carnage. The first thing I did was to call Chrissy’s Mom (and take pictures). She was busy, but said that Katie would come over to help me. I put Gavin down in his crib so that I could clear off Aiden’s bed. I made a pile of ruined bedding (including Ellie, Aiden’s favorite elephant) to take downstairs, and then put a fresh fitted sheet and pillowcase on the bed.
Katie came in and put Aiden in the bath while I took the bedding downstairs to be washed. Unfortunately, the Vaseline wouldn’t come out of his hair, even after three tries with baby shampoo. Katie then tried to wash his hair again with Dawn dish soap. That helped, but he still had a mohawk. Gavin was starting to wake up at this point, so Katie fed him while I tried something else. A quick Google search showed that corn starch or baking powder would soak up the Vaseline from Aiden’s hair. I covered his entire head with baking powder, then washed his hair twice. It worked!
Now that Aiden was taken care of, I needed to clean his sheets. There’s lots of advice online about getting Vaseline out of hair, but not bedding. I had put everything in the washer on the delicate setting with hot water and extra rinse time. That seemed to work on most of it, but the comforter and fitted sheet were still a mess. So I pre-treated the splotches with Dawn dish soap, let it sit for half an hour, and then washed them again in hot water. Still no luck, but at least the majority of the crisis had been contained.
Aiden played for a while until dinner time. Katie stuck around for awhile to help me with Gavin, since he still refused to go to sleep. I was very grateful for the help. But I still had to talk to Chrissy when she got home. Chrissy wasn’t happy about the sheets and the comforter, and tried to clean them again with Spray N’ Wash. This was more than the comforter could handle, and it split open, sending stuffing all over the washer. Those are now in the garbage, as is the jar of Vaseline.
Meta-Tags:
accident, Aiden, Gavin, sheets, Vaseline
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Lol! Even the best parent will have something like this happen, so you’re not a bad dad. Kids will do the darnedest things when given just the right amount of time. You seemed to have kept your cool. Thanks for the tips on the vasoline, I’m sure one day that bit of knowledge will help me since I don’t have kids of my own yet.