Spray Paint

I'll get to the cruise soon. It will take a while, but it will sure be fun reliving it! I just realized that I haven't documented the incident with the new carpet. So here it is.

As Damon was creating his Pinewood derby car this year, the other kids got a little excited about the spray paint. It was amazing to them how something colorful comes out of a can that looks like hairspray. Damon was very careful to only spray his car outside, and to bring the can back upstairs, removing the logical temptation for the others to try it out.

On Sunday afternoon, Carter came upstairs from the newly finished basement with green hands. He told me, "Kyla sprayed the doggy door." And so I went down to check it out. Sure enough, the doggy door was completely green, and it was obvious where Carter had touched it with his hands. To make matters a thousand times worse, though, was the HUGE green spot on the carpet. I have no pictures to document it, but she had sprayed a spot about three feet by two feet on the brand new carpet. Man, was I ticked off. A few minutes later, Jeff and Damon came in the door after home teaching, and I took them down to see it. Kyla was, of course, cowering in the corner at this point, refusing to talk to any of us about what had happened.

After a quick Google consultation, Jeff and I set to work trying to get the stain out. We started with paint thinner, which made the stain less green, but there was not a huge noticeable difference. We then sprayed the area with WD40 and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. We then went back to scrubbing and after 30 minutes or so, we had gotten quite a bit out. We also used soapy water to try to get the WD40 out of the carpet, too. However, it was still VERY obvious where the paint had been, as we couldn't get the green tinge to go away. And it was in an area (right in front of the doggy door) that we couldn't have covered with a couch or a rug. Grrr.

We had to really give it to Kyla. She has a history with drawing on things (couches, walls, homes, etc), but this one took the cake. We decided that the best punishment for her would be to take away her computer time for a long period of time. We settled on one month. We wanted something that would really hurt her (without literally hurting her) to deter her from doing something like this again. I think it was an effective punishment, as she mentioned to me one day, about two weeks into her "computer ban," that she wanted to play the computer that she felt bad, and, "I wish I hadn't spray painted the floor!"

A few days after our failed attempt to remove all the spray paint, we were having our carpet upstairs cleaned. I showed the stain to the carpet man and asked if he had any suggestions. He said he would try to do a residue remover, as he thought that would help more than a major spot remover. And whatever he did was fantastic! The rest of the green stain vanished and now you can't even tell where it was. Miraculous. But Kyla still had to serve the rest of her sentence.