Crayola

I think the Crayola company is trying to drive me, and mothers everywhere, simply mad. My oldest child is seven and in just the few years I have had kids they have come out with a whole slew of products that moved Crayola products from their permanent residence at the kitchen table to other spots in my house.

Window Markers- Lovely idea. Create markers that kids can draw on the windows with and you can wipe off. Found these when we went to the Crayola Factory up in Pennsylvania. It's not the real Crayola Factory, it's sort of "this is how we do it" demonstartion thing. The kids still thought it was cool and they got to do all sorts of art projects. (As an aside, they had this really cool drying machine that you can stick their paintings in and it's dry when it comes out the other side. I want one! This would totally rescue me from the art projects that dry all over my counters!) Anyhow, they have a store (of course) and it's got every Crayola project imaginable. Hence the window markers. But frankly, it's not pretty and my back door always has scribbles in various colors on it. For some reason it hasn't dawned on the older ones to draw nice pictures on it, they just want to scribble on it. And I have to clean it. It never comes off the first time and requires Windex to get the film off. And don't get me started on the door frame problem.

Bath Crayons - We have tons of bathtub toys and I'm all for the kids having fun in there. It's my fault - I mean I bought the crayons, thinking my three year old would enjoy them. But I just spent all sorts of time in there wiping crayon off of the bathtub. It's bad enough I have to scrub out the tub, now I get to clean the walls every time too.

Color Wonder - Another great thing - in theory. The markers/paint/crayons whatever only work on special paper. They can't draw on walls or your carpet with them (so why are they encouraging my kids draw on the bathtub and windows?) But did you catch the word "special paper"? Yea. It's the Diaper Genie all over again. Special paper means that you can't just grab a stack out of your printer to keep them happy. Nope, Crayola is determined to keep me as a returning customer. Well, I draw the line at this one. You may have taken over the bathroom and the windows downstairs, but you will not make me buy special paper to work with the special markers. You can't make me!

Wow. I feel so much better now. And if anyone knows an exec at Crayola, feel free to forward my comments.