This Post Brought to You by Crayola and Upholstery Cleaners of America

I have read many tales on other blogs of wayward children and the use of art supplies in undesignated areas. Sharpie markers used to illustrate walls, paints dropped on wood floors, pencil writings on nice linen clothes. For the sake of honesty, I might as well add that as a small child I once used to red permanent marker on a large biblical map at the church building while I taught a pretend Sunday school class as my mother worked on curriculum.

Casa de phillips has been spared such misplaced illustrations...until this morning.

It was a typical Sunday morning of everybody rushing to eat, get dressed, and then not mess up said dress clothes in the final moments before departing for church. I walked into the living room after finally deciding there was little hope for this mop of hair on this particular morning and was greeted by two excited children.

The oldest of said children informed me that "some craziness has been going on in here."

The youngest of said children informed me "I been coloring on my Cin-er-ella underwears" (She gets dressed in the final 2.7 seconds before rushing out the door on Sundays...for obvious reasons.)

"Cin-er-ella" was not the only thing little Miss. E. felt the need to color. Our perfectly good, totally unassuming ottoman is now covered in brown and orange stripes. Our little girl now understands that crayons are for PAPER only and that "Cin-er-ella underwears" and ottomans prefer to remain their natural color.

I have now googled "How do I get crayon off my couch?" and was relieved to see 40,000 hits for such a topic. "Why did my child feel the need to color the ottoman?" only generated about 12,00o Google hits, none of which really answered my question.

Oh well. It is just crayon and perhaps this will be a one-time stint in E. coloring outside the lines.

As I get ready to scrub and steam-clean the ottoman and couches (because, among the orange and brown streaks are quite a few apple juice and formula stains), tell me what your child has drawn on lately.

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Here is our sweet little boy hiding out in his cotton crop this morning with Daddy while sister was listening to the lecture of "We only color on PAPER." The shorts/sweater vest/sandal combo on little boys....just as great as the white smocked dress. Surely they will still want to wear such outfits when they are 12, right?

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