Sharpie, meet your match!

Last week, while cleaning in one room, I safely put my kids in the kitchen at their child-friendly, easily cleaned craft table to color.  Well, after the dusting and vacuuming was done, I checked in on them to find that they were using their easel in the kitchen too with a chalkboard on one side and a dry erase board on the other.  All was good and I continued on my cleaning spree….then, it hit me…."Where did they find their dry erase markers?  I had those put away so they wouldn't let them dry out". 

I ran back to the kitchen to find my 3 year old twins writing on the dry erase board and the side wall with a beautiful blue sharpie marker.  I quickly grabbed a wet paper towel to see if some of it would wipe away if it were still wet (Yeah, right!!)

I stood there a little disappointed thinking that their brand new easel was basically ruined.  I went through a list of all of the cleaners we had in the house and I knew none of them would even make a dent in the damage.  

Then, I spotted the Magic Eraser under the kitchen sink.  "Might as well give it a try, nothing else is working". With a quite a bit of elbow grease and the magic eraser, the sharpie marks have come out of the dry erase board and the side walls of the easel.

So, besides the obvious rule of hiding the sharpies even better than before, I will always keep a Magic Eraser on hand for emergencies.  What kind of products do you keep on hand for "emergencies"?