So, Adelyn is imaginative, a little off the wall and creative. She is one of those kids that on a daily basis begs the question, "What in the world? Where did that come from?" Therefore, I wasn't too surprised when I glanced over at breakfast to see her working very intently on something under the table. She had been talking to me about whatever she was doing for about ten minutes, no breathing in between words, but when you have a kid that talks as much as Adelyn it's only natural to tune out all but the dangerous signal words. I walked over to discover her storing all her crayons in the legs of her footy pajamas. She had pushed them all down into the feet area. "Adelyn, what are you doing?" "Mom, I'm storing them like a squirrel. Now I can take them everywhere with me." Oh, yeah. Duh, how did I not think of that? With a little power struggle, I convinced her that squirrels store their nuts in trees. One location, like her crayon box. She began to pull them out reluctantly. After much morning playtime and wild crazy running, it was time to change out of the jammies and start the day. I threw them down in the hamper and that was that. Or so I thought...
Two days later when I went to place her adorable feetsies in her freshly washed jammie jams, I couldn't. That's because they were hard as a rock and sealed shut with redness. Crayon redness. "oooohhh, Mom they're pretty." No, Adelyn. No they are not. I asked her about removing the crayons from her footies and she responded, "But Mom, I needed one for on the go." AAHHHH! I put her down for nigh night and rushed to my dryer to explore the damage. My worst nightmare. Red crayon melted throughout the dryer drum. By the grace of God only a few items were destroyed in the load but what now? So, I did some research.
Come to find out WD-40 will remove crayon. Now, since my dryer is electric I was ok with this suggestion. If it were gas I think I would have found another route. Since, WD-40 is a flammable substance! I ran the dryer on its hottest setting for ten minutes. I then sprayed WD-40 onto a rag and gently scrubbed the drum so I wouldn't scratch the enamel. I used a toothbrush to clean out the crevices. I then took a damp cloth and wiped out the WD-40. I placed a few damp rags in the dryer and ran in for a cycle to make sure there wasn't an residual wax. Awesome it worked. My back up plan was to use toothpaste (yes, someone swore by this method) but fortunately I was able to eliminate it the first try.
I've always been a pocket checker when doing laundry, but now with a toddler, I know that I must be a footie and hoodie checker as well!
What a riot! There must be something about crayons. When Katie was a toddler, I found her snapping the crayons in half. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was making green beans. (She liked to help me prepare green beans for dinner.) How could I argue with that logic?
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