Desitin: A diaper rash's best friend, a Mom's worst nightmare!!!

My oldest daughter, Jillian is three years old. She is a cute little girl who is always doing something funny or mischievous. Well, it has become a part of our daily routine that she watch me get ready in the mornings. She watches me do my skin care regimen and would copy me from time to time. I would often give her some moisturizer to put on her face and would show her how to rub it in her face.

One particular morning, I found myself alone doing my daily routine. I yelled for my little girl, but she didn't answer me. She was very quiet, the kind of quiet that frightens you beyond belief. I started frantically looking for her, yelling her name from room to room. I got to the family room and yelled her name, “Jillian!!!” I heard her faint little voice say, “Here I am!” I saw her little head pop up over the pillows of my formal living room couch. Her face was white as a ghost, literally. I screamed really loud, and started to panic. She had gotten hold of a new tube of Desitin, and emptied it. She had used it as a moisturizer on her face and I guess had gotten too much on her little hands, and used my nice green fabric covered couch and a decorative throw pillow as a napkin. She had gotten it all over her hands and there were little white hand prints everywhere she had been. I got really worried because not too long before that she had taken permanent marker to my cream colored leather couches and they were ruined. I tried all the tricks I could find online and all they did was change the color of the leather. So, it scared me that I was going to have two couches out of commission. I got her all cleaned up only after taking a picture of her, trying not to smile, so that she would know I wasn't happy with what she had done.

Now for the furniture. I tried wet wipes, because they get it off of the little tooshies that it goes on, I tried a wet rag. So I did the only other think I knew to do… I called my sister who has an answer to anything and everything a child could possibly do. She had gone through five little mischievous girls herself. After many moments of her looking online trying to reassure me that it was going to be ok, she found it!!! It is definitely something every mom should have in her book of “antidotes”. The post that she found said that ‘Dawn’ dish soap and hot water, as hot as you can stand to put your hand in would do the trick. Just a drop will do. Holy Cow was she right or what… just a drop, and really hot water and a washrag in a cool whip container saved my couch from being covered by a slipcover. It also took all the great white stuff off of her clothes that we covered in it. I even re-washed her hair with it. The grease fighting part of the detergent loosens the grease and the hot water melts it, so it just wipes off. I guess they use it for the ducks in the oil spills for a reason eh? If it can work for my couch and her clothes, they definitely don'’t use false advertising on the power of the stuff.

Anyway, I always keep an extra bottle of Dawn dish soap under my kitchen sink for such occasions. I needed it for my baby's comforter when she got some Desitin in her possession just a few weeks ago. I also learned that fabric couches do better at Grandma’s house than ours! I am a true believer of leather couches for our little family.