How To Remove Permanent Marker 101

On Tuesday night, Logan and I went on a date.  While we were out, Jim very helpfully went downstairs to take care of some laundry.  During that time he heard Annie and Alex running around and giggling upstairs.  He thought, "Oh good, they are having fun together."  When he returned minutes later this is what he found:

Except they weren't in the tub of course.

Then he had another shock...  (These pictures are way too bright because I didn't want to take time to adjust my flash, but this was DARK BLACK marker.)

And another...

And another...

And another and another and another of which I didn't take pictures.  Let's just say that her artwork included five cushions, four walls, three chairs, a table, a dresser, a bed, three articles of clothing, two faces and bodies, three doors, a mirror, and a floor.

After three hours of cleaning we decided to head to bed and had yet another surprise.

So here's the crash course on cleaning permanent marker.

Step 1: Resist the urge to ground child FOREVER.
Step 2: Remind yourself that child is more important than house.
Step 3: Send child to bed for the night.
Step 4: Get out the rubbing alcohol and toothpaste, and send husband to store for more supplies.
Step 5: Make sure husband forgets his cell phone, so you can't reach him when you have a new item to add to his list.
Step 6: Discover the magic of rubbing alcohol and toothpaste.  Seriously.  At least on some surfaces.
Step 7: Work quickly.  Time is the key!
Step 8: Remove ALL writing utensils from child's reach until further notice.

Anyway, I started on the couch and before Jim had returned from the store it was totally clean...all five cushions and dozens of marks.  I think I had such good success because it was the first thing I hit.

He returned home as I was ready to start the dining room wall.  That wasn't as easy.  We tried several things, including magic eraser, and had the most success with toothpaste (not the gel kind) and rubbing alcohol.  It took a lot of scrubbing and we didn't get it entirely out.  You can't see it unless you look for it, though.

By the time we decided to give up on the dining room, it had been three hours so we quickly made an attempt at the other walls (very little success on flat paint) and the table and chairs.  The table and chairs came clean with toothpaste very easily.  Phew!  I had zero success with the kids clothes, but I think that was because they'd been sitting for so long.  I decided they had enough clothes and those weren't worth trying to save so I didn't try very hard.

We thought we were done and headed to our room to go to bed.  That's when we had our final surprise.  She'd colored on our sheets (something I didn't even try to clean because I was too exhausted), our wood floor, door, closet doors, mirror, dresser, and wall.  The rubbing alcohol largely faded the marks on the floor and doors.  The mirror came totally clean with rubbing alcohol and the dresser with toothpaste.  Jim surprisingly managed to get the marks somewhat off the wall with a dry erase marker.  The key was to do a little at a time and rub it off the wall very quickly.

She has lost all art privileges until after our upcoming vacation and I've moved all our writing utensils way out of reach.  They are almost out of my reach...  May this not happen again.  And may it be laughable soon...it almost is.  :)