How To Clean Up Baby Powder

Some days I feel like I spend my whole life cleaning. Just following my kids around, picking things up and scrubbing things off. This was one of those days. February 6, 2014. If you follow on instagram you might have seen this picture I posted:

babypowder

That's an all the baby powder ALL OVER THE BATHROOM scene. Have you been there? By the way, I LOVED all your comments on this photo. I loved hearing your stories because it made me feel better about my parenting. I tried to respond to a few of those comments, but it was a busy day…

This happened while I was ordering a sippy cup on Amazon, by the way. It took me like 2 minutes to do and BAM. Baby powder. Baby powder is a minor offense in my mind. It smells good, it's a little dusty, but hey! It's CLEAN. It's not mud or dirt or something dirty. It can be tricky to clean up, but I managed to wipe down most of the surfaces.

Right after this incident, I was understandably tired, mentally, you know. But then I walked into the other bathroom and found SHARPIE on the wall. In the grout. I'm pretty sure we will have to paint and regrout, until then we are enjoying a little colbalt blue masterpiece all over the wall. I walked in, saw it, put the kids in the car and went to the craft store. I wasn't really mad, because I really I should have known they were up to no good when they were playing nicely. How did the Sharpie even get in the bathroom? Why do we have a 3 year old and a Sharpie in the same house? So anyways, we did a little craft store therapy and let dad clean that one up. Except it's still there.

My kids are heavily surpervised, they are definitely a full time job and they still manage to make so many messes. It's a lot of work!

shark-steam-and-spray

So, anyways, 2 weeks later I got a Steam and Spray in the mail from the good people at Shark! I met them at ALT and got to play around with their Steam and Spray mop and their super lightweight vacuum (weighs 7 lbs, which I laughed at because my babies are born bigger than that!) I fell in love with the whole system. It was really easy to figure out and start using when I opened the box. First I cleaned the whole kitchen floor. It got off blueberries that were really stuck and other food items…

…Then I took to the pink bathroom and got the rest of the baby powder up. The tile goes up the wall in that bathroom, so I even used it on the wall, hah! Two weeks later, the baby powder was finally all gone and all that was left was the nice smell of the cleaning solution that came with the Steam and Spray! It won't help me with the Sharpie problem, but we'll figure that one out I hope.

Then I took it to the hardwood floors. It was seamless to transition between surfaces and really really fun to use!

shark

Here is a little summary of my pros and cons of the Stark Steam and Spray:

Pros:

The steam STERILIZES your floor with steam. Which is amazing for me, because my kids literally eat stuff off the floor everyday. I mean, I try to stop it but, come on. Not happening. You don't even have to use chemicals to get a good clean.
The optional cleaner smells SO good, so in my mind it's not really an option! I use it all the time.
There are 3 settings for different intensities of cleaning, which replaces my mop and my disposable duster.
It comes with a reusable pad as well as disposable ones.
It's an adorable light purple color.
The cord is really long!
You can use it on all hard surfaces which is great because we have tile and hardwood.
It's fun to use. My floors haven't been this clean in a long time!
If I use this thing for like 5 minutes before my husband gets home, he thinks I've been cleaning all day! (HAH!)
It's small to store and great for small or big spaces, big messes a little ones.
You don't really have to SCRUB, the steam really loosens things that are stuck on the floor.

Cons:

It doesn't come with a maid.
It doesn't prevent your children from making more messes. (Can someone invent a product that does that, please?)
The water vessel cap comes completely off, I can see it getting lost in my (toddler ridden) house. So far, it's still where it's supposed be though.

That's pretty much it for cons, I really do love this thing!

shark2

The Shark Steam and Spray will pretty much replace my previous cleaning system, the manual mop for intense stuff and disposable dusters for daily upkeep. It's nice to have just ONE awesome tool that covers all the bases. I LOVE it!

And here's a little before and after pic, just for kicks:

before-after