one afternoon last week, during an unusually silent kids’ nap time, i found myself wondering why i could not hear the monkey’s usual sounds of upturned rocking chair leaps onto the big-boy-bed or his customary transfer of water by cup from sink to tub in his adjoining bathroom. for the life of me, i could not fathom what he could possibly be up to. (notice that it did not once occur to me that he could actually be SLEEPING during his nap time.)

i went on about my business, and an hour later, i opened my door to this:

a small portion of the gigantic play-doh mess AFTER my husband worked on it for an hour.

“lily pads” of blue play-doh, expertly caked on to the unforgiving white carpet. excellent.

after googling “removal of play-doh from carpet,” (which, incidentally, pops right up in that google toolbar as soon as you type “removal of pl…”) and visiting the manufacturer’s website, i have discerned that what i need is a wire brush. i have also discovered that there are entire websites dedicated to the removal of play-doh from carpet, each one providing step-by-step instructions comparable in detail to those that NASA uses to launch spacecrafts. see:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4854864_clean-playdoh-out-carpet.html

http://ask.yahoo.com/20070111.html

should i be worried that the last step in these instructions is often “call a professional carpet cleaner?”

i’ll keep you posted. any tips you have would be much appreciated.