No Resolve

This morning I was hanging our wet laundry on the rack out in our unfinished, unconditioned mudroom. I figure if it's going to be beastly hot outside, then I'll let the outdoor oven do me the favor of drying my clothes. It beats letting the electric dryer heat up the whole house, and it's cheaper too (no electricity). I was out there for about 5 minutes, and the kids were ensconced in the living room watching Sesame Street.

When I came back in the house, K ran from the living room to the side door shrieking, "Mommy! Pretty mommy!" I assumed it was something on the television, so I said, "Pretty? OK, show me!" and let her lead me into the living room.

Apparently Sesame Street did not, in fact, capture my daughter's attention for the 5 or so minutes it took me to hang the laundry up to dry. She had instead gone into the pantry, pulled out a box of macaroni and cheese, discarded the noodles on the couch, and then decided to open the cheese packet and dump it all over our newly cleaned and vacuumed cream colored carpet and her brother's chair in the living room. Actually, she didn't just "dump it"; she had arranged the neon orange contents rather carefully on the carpet and her brother's chair, and was proudly showing me how she could grind the cheese into the fibers, now that I was in there to see her "pretty". Her brother had wisely gone upstairs to hide when she did this, and didn't come down until I was dealing with the situation.

I quashed my first impulse, mostly because it involved some violence and blood is a ***** to clean out of anything ~ and also because it was partially my fault for leaving a very curious and industrious 2-yr-old unattended for a few minutes. So I picked up my cheesy-handed daughter (with more tenderness than I thought I had in me at that point) and deposited her in her bedroom for a few minutes. Then I headed downstairs and gathered the noodles, and turned the vacuum on the cheese powder that was arranged on about a quarter of the living room floor (and her brother's chair). The vacuum got most of the powder up, but there was a faint neon orange glow still emanating from the carpet. "Ha HA!" I thought, in my best superhero voice. "I have some Resolve carpet stain remover in the cubby with the cleaners."

Here's a tip for all you parents, babysitters, and grandparents out there:

Never use Resolve carpet cleaner on the cheese powder from a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese when it's on your carpet.

The liquid in the stain remover interacts with whatever trace amounts of cheese powder that is left and forms an orange paste that resembles newly-mixed grout for the tile in your bathroom (only more orange). And then when you go to wipe it up, it spreads. It will come up rather nicely once it's dried, though, and I do believe my carpet is stain-and-cheese free, at least as far as I can tell. We'll know for certain tonight when we turn the lights off ~ if the carpet starts glowing, I've missed some.