October 20, 2009

Labels

Kellen's kindergarten teacher preaches that the key to loss prevention is labeling personal effects with one's first and last name.

I applauded my son for printing his initials on every article of clothing in his closet, socks and underwear included.

I responded less favorably to the discovery of a "K" printed in black Sharpie on the back of one of my kitchen chairs.




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Has your child ever labeled something that he/she shouldn't?

97 comments

Annette said...

The sofa.

Justbeingamum said...

Not yet, but I am sure that my time will come. Son 3 and daughter 1 :)

mom2four said...

I have 4 kids...I am distracted by homeschooling...the markers are in a reachable drawer...I know you can picture the artwork now :)

Emme said...

When we were younger my brother would write on everything... including his bedroom door stating that it was his. From then on there were no unsupervised writing implements. :)

Dianna said...

As the oldest of 4 girls, I was constantly defending my turf. One day I took a red crayon and wrote "mine" on every drawer of my white dresser. Unfortunately, the crayon was permanent and even worse was my spelling: "min."

Rydgd said...

I've 'stalked' your blog for a long time now...thanks so much for brightening my day. My second boy is a LABELER. Still is at 11 years old. I once opened the back of our minivan to find the seats and plastic sides labeled with his initials. Unfortunately, he's moved from sharpies to carving and cutting his initials into walls, couches, and mattresses. The greatest part about it is he'll deny that he's the artist every time. There aren't any other "KH"s in our house that I'm aware of. Must be the phantom naughty child that does all the bad stuff around here. Thanks for your fun takes on daily life!

Lindy said...

This is too funny and awfully cute.

My daughter took a pen to my lamp on my side of the bed and wrote "mommy" then she did the same thing to the lamp on my husband's side of the bed but labeled that one "daddy."

I never washed it off - I couldn't.

Jeni said...

My sister once spray painted her name on our HOUSE. She then denied doing it... eheheh.

Beth said...

In 20 years, you'll treasure that K. Trust me.

Erin said...

If you do want to take it off, hairspray removes Sharpie in a heartbeat!

Six-Pack Momma said...

I engraved my name, proudly in the top of my mom's piano.....seemed to work, though, as I inherited the thing!

HW said...

First I want to know if he tried to blame a sibling.

My son and his friends labeled the new sidewalk being poured across the street by writing their names in the wet concrete. That was an especially fun time dealing with the contractor.

Presently there is what appears to be math homework carved into my dining room table.

Kmama said...

Ohhh. My kids are too young to begin the labeling.

Just a thought, have you tried a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get the sharpie off? I had a friend that was able to get sharpie off her kitchen cabinets.

Janel said...

Good old rubbing alchohol will remove ink from just about anything! the others mentioned work too.

Anonymous said...

My 2 year old learned to say MINE a few weeks ago.

We were at a local park when we saw another little girl who was wearing shoes like some that my daughter also has (and were at home in the closet).

She goes up to this poor kid and starts screaming MIIIINE at the top of her lungs.

It's a form of labeling. lol.

The Four Week Vegan said...

Thankfully, I have no recollection of this happening with any of my three. Honestly, no clue of what you speak. I stand firm on my lack of memory here - don't push it.

Deanna said...

My brother was notorious for that! LOL!

Hairspray...lots of hairspray will take that "K" off. :)

Kenton and Marianne Ogg said...

My brother was learning about electricity in school. He noticed that our piano was not labeled "correctly" and decided to carve 'high voltage' into the top of it. Lovely.

Melissa said...

Our new leather couch, with an ink pen, that is yet to come out! We still haven't figured out exactly which child did it. Unfortunately, they did not leave their initials.

Mandy and Alex said...

I did this as a kid, except I climbed up on a chair and wrote out the entire alphabet on the back of the bathroom door and then signed it "by Tommy", my 15 month old brother. When questioned by my parents I stuck to my story and ended up grounded for a week.

Mary said...

Not my kids but my younger brother many years ago carved his name on our front door and then tried to say that I did it, needless to say my mother didn't buy it!

Amy said...

To avoid confusion, or the risk that someone would run off with it, my son wrote "Charlie's bed" on the headboard of his bed. In permant marker. Oh, and he's 7. I thought they outgrew that kind of stuff by 7.

Yvette said...

All of my kids when learning to write their names have practiced on our walls and furniture. My daughter wrote her name all over our wooden stairway. It came off with one of those magic erasers. My sister in law got smart and wrote the neighbors name on the toliet. She waited til she was almost an adult before she told her mother she was the actual offender.

Pam said...

I did this quite regularly when I was a child. My parents still have a lamp shade with my name written on the inside. The underside of our kitchen table also had my name scrawled on it, along with countless other places.

My boys etched their names on their dresser drawers, which erked me at first, until I remembered my own days of autographing.

Skubaliscious said...

My children have not figured out yet that using their names as graffiti is not the best plan for remaining anonymous in their naughtiness....

Melonie said...

Thank goodness for the Magic Eraser!

MamaOtwins+1 said...

The top and bottom bunks are labeled - so are the walls, the couch, the kitchen counter and the inside of the closet.

Kay said...

A friend's son would take a large bread knife and "saw" the legs off of chairs.

Julie B said...

at quite a young age, my daughter carved her name into the kitchen table that i don't really like. i secretly was glad!!! a few years later my son did the same thing. i saw that as a good sign. he was adopted at 3 1/2 and carving his name meant he belonged. my 5 year old doesn't know how to write his name yet, but he will add it one day. i don't think i will ever get rid of this kitchen table that i still really don't like!!

Parenting Ink said...

That is the funniest thing I've seen in a while!

My daughter wrote my son's initials for him...on his arm.

Unknown said...

The walls! There's a place in Sass's closet where she wrote her name backwards when she little.

The Carew Family said...

Thank goodness for the Magic Eraser! My kid took a sharpie to the walls of my house and garage!

Janine said...

I'm my mother's 23-year-old child, and missionaries that live in my old apartments are still coming across my name written on cups, my desk, the kitchen table, and our handy baseball bat that we kept by the door in case of intruders. If you don't put your name on things, you'll be forgotten!

Beth said...

LOL! Yes! Now that Madison has learned to write her name I see it everywhere. SO far it's only on paper :/

TheQueen@TerrorsInTiaras said...

My TEN-year-old wrote on my couch with pen. She's lucky it came off.

Leah said...

Or Lord yes. I had a 2 person desk custom built and the day after it was installed she found a sharpie and wrote ALL over it and my blackberry! Thankfully it came off the blackberry. The desk - Not even a magic eraser helped.

Janie said...

OH Ya - my son carved him name into the top of his dresser using none other than his CTR ring. He was 9 years old and I was due to have his baby brother in a few months. I guess he was just he was marking his territory!!

Viv said...

That is an awesome 'K' for a little guy!

Jen@Scrapingirl said...

The doorframe of her room. As if I'd forget who sleeps there.

M.S. said...

My neighbor's son just did this the other day... on his brother's back in blue marker!

Anonymous said...

Our landlord (whom we despised)poured a new slab on concrete next to our driveway. When he wasn't home, we took our dog out there and wrote her name and put her paws in the wet cement. Um, I was an adult when my husband and I did this!

Meeko Fabulous said...

No kids yet, but can you imagine if parents started writing their initials on their kids?!

Lisa and company said...

My neighbor and I signed our names on the outside of my Grandma's house once.

Desert Rose said...

Oh my gawd, this is funny..not if it would've happened to me though! I haven't had this happen, just the normal yet aggravating coloring on everything.

Angie said...

Goo gone totally takes sharpie off of wood. Usually. Good luck. My kid is currently throwing things down the vents. Also awesome.

Jenn & Jake said...

I'm glad someone finally mentioned Goo Gone, that stuff is amazing, especially with marker :) Still looking forward (I think?) to having our own little 'Labeler'.

Malea said...

my son decided to play tic tac toe on his shorts yesterday in the car.

Michelle said...

I definitely did that when I was a kid too!! Except I knew I shouldn't so I would do it on the bottom of furniture, or the furniture in my room....

Andrea said...

When I was little I thought it would be cool to carve our family name into the cherrywood banister so that anyone who came into our house would see our name. To this day I still remember feeling confused about why my mom was so mad--it seemed like such a great idea at the time! Thankfully, it doesn't appear that my boys have inherited my interest for labeling things...yet.

Nellie said...

When I was a child, we were left to our own devices in the basement (our only playing area of a two-family house). Well, I thought it'd be nice if I drew a picture on the basement door that faced the long dining table we all used to eat our meals. My uncle was by no means pleased when he clearly spotted what I dubbed a beautiful hair dryer on the wood door. Needless to say, I was punished for a very long time as those doors remained in the basement along with my artwork for a good 10years before they were replaced!

Rene said...

My son engraved his name TRAVIS on the six different panels of wood, in the house we were renting.

happyfamily said...

Acetone nailpolish remover. Try it!

Or maybe test it in a discreet place first to make sure it doesn't take off the finish. Should be okay. That's.... awesome!

Becky said...

Purple crayon all over our new house. Two words - Magic Eraser!

EBPitcher said...

Wasn't my child... but a friend now has 2/5 of her child's name keyed into her driver's side door paint! Oops!

Bang-Fabrication said...

My little cousins name is still on the quilt frames that get passed around. She is now 29.

mummyof6monsters said...

we have DAKOTA and RANI on our coffee table-although neither of them will admit to doing it!

Shanin said...

One time my daughter Grace wrote how much she loved me and signed her name, in red ball point pen... on the front of my freshly painted white kitchen cabinet.

Unknown said...

Just this morning, I was telling the IT guy at my office (who happened to bring his 2 year old daughter with him and she HAD to color), about the times when my kids had drawn on things. My oldest would be discreet about it - I found some things drawn on the side of her dresser. Another daughter once drew a couple of really cute little people on a lamp shade. But when my son learned to write his own name ... E-L-L-I-O-T-T, that name started showing up everywhere! On the stairway wall, on his bed, on his sister's bed, on the concrete garage floor ... !!! Now that my children are mostly grown (Elliott is now 16), I smile when I see the pen marks that never got cleaned away! Worse things could happen.

JAMIE said...

Sadly, yes. My son decided to start keeping his Pokemon cards which are dear to his heart, under his pillow. Well, apparently he needed three piles. " Keep Mine Will's"

And this was very nicely labeled in Sharpie on his Bunkbed headboard with arrows pointing down to the appropriate spots of the piles.

This is my kid who has NEVER written on anything, and he saves this doozy for the tender age of 6!!

Not a happy mom, but at least his card piles won't get confused. ;)

Morgen said...

My oldest son, now 8, wrote his brother's name on the wall with a sharpie when he was 5...and tried to tell me his brother, who was 2, had done it.
also, when I was a kid...I had a bed fram that was painted. I peeled the paint on on of the posts into the intitials of the boy I had a crush on:)

Anonymous said...

Jana - Try writing over the K with a dry erase marker -- you might be amazed that it comes off fairly easily after that!!

You can thank Andrew for the Sharpie removal knowledge bank -

Linda Rich

Karen said...

My son used a screw he had found to write his name into the headboard of our bed while he was supposed to be taking a nap.

Nelson's Mama said...

Don't know if you are old enough to remember "Operation Identification" - the school would send home engravers so parents could put their social security number on their valuable items so they could be recovered in case they were stolen.

My little brother was in first grade and so excited to get to bring the engraver home!! He engraved my Mom's SSN on every last piece of furniture in his bedroom!

Sarah said...

YES! Mine did this accept that she etched it into the wood with a pencil, and not just one letter,Noooooo she wrote her whole name!

Jen Crook said...

W-D40 will remove permanent marker like a dream. FYI

The Fyllings said...

I am assuming that this is the chair he sits in!

My nephew, Matthew, scratched "Matt" into the paint of the bathroom wall (while sitting on the toilet). He somehow thought that we wouldn't think it was him!

loriaj61 said...

When I was about 4, my dad got a brand new Dodge Dart, yes I know I am dating myself, many of you may not even know what that is, but for those of you that don't it is a car. I told to go get in the car as we were leaving to go somewhere, which I did. I was the only one that was in the car and I got bored. I found a saftey pin and began to scratch my name in the brand new shiny black paint of the back interior panel. My father found it a few days later. Yikes!!

Lainie said...

When I was five, and we moved into a new house, I was afraid it was going to fall down on me. My mom assured me it was tough. Tough, eh? Good to know. I thought everyone should know. I took a purple crayon and wrote "TUF" all over the brick and concrete front entryway. Let's say mom was not pleased.

regina said...

the big colorful piece of furniture that i am certain has a professional and fancy name that i cannot recall has a gigantic ELLA on the drawer, so does our van windows, van ceiling, bedroom wall, AND every piece of paper in the house. we are now onto sight words...we,see,the,and,i,am.....etc. nothing is safe.

regina said...

ps. i chewed on everything as a kid, no initials needed, just a mold of my front teeth.

Anonymous said...

My sister once carved her name with the pointed end of a scissors on top of a dresser and then tried to deny that!

Anonymous said...

After getting in trouble for teasing his twin sister's who are 18 months younger then him my son was sent to his room. When I went in to get him he had preceded to write "I hate his two sisters names" all over EVERYTHING in black sharpie marker. Thank goodness for magic erasers!

Becky Andrews said...

Our previous home has our son's name engraved on the porch. He recently stopped by, age 22, and learned it was still there.

mama rose said...

we've had our share of one of a kind designs by the 64 color princess. Now she's paper trained. LOL

Hoovy4 said...

2 weeks after we bought our first brand-new from a store sofa, our 4 year drew a 2 foot long fresco on the back in blue sharpie. Stick figures of mom, dad, himself, baby sister and favorite cousin. Apparently ball point pen is covered under the warranty, but not sharpie. I preferred the pictures to a big blue smudge, so it is still there today!

magsthemom said...

When my oldest twins were younger, the oldest of them liked to write her name on everything, including the wall. One day she wrote her twin's name on the bed frame thinking her twin would get in trouble. Too bad I recognized the handwriting.

feefifoto said...

My son once drew on the wall and then accommodatingly signed his work. Wasn't hard figuring out the identity of the vandal.

jeleighbean said...

she once addressed a letter to herself, does that count? She did tell me it was her's and she just wanted the postman to know. Stamped the envelope too-with a whole roll of stamps I had just bought!

Mandy said...

I have a child with an A name and shortly after he started preschool I had an A etched into my new leather couch, an A etched into a freshly painted blue wall, and an A, written with black marker on my towels in my bathroom. I love my kids!

Colleen ~~ Hockey Mom said...

My 5 year old carved, yes carved (with what I have no idea still), the name of his favorite hockey player into the top of his dresser.

Amber said...

My nephew in black sharpie wrote his name "Alex" on the center top edge of the TV. He was about six or seven. He is now 15 and his name is STILL on the TV!

Amy said...

When I was about 7 I drew a VERY small self portrait of myself with my name (of course) underneath on a drafting table in my dad's den. It was only about 1 inch high...just a little something nice to add to the quality. Then I could not understand WHY I got in trouble EVEN after I informed my parents that it was NOT ME!!

I love how children's minds work and what they think they can deny.

Pam said...

My daughter went through the phase of writing her initials or sometime her whole name on lots of things. The worst being a table, several windowsills, my best friend's washing machine.

My son did it once, unfortunately it was on the side of our house.

Tanya said...

When my son was in Kindergarten, he found a pen outside and wrote his name on the parking lot post closest to our spot in our complex. The other side of that post belonged to a family with children, but he made sure there was no question which child graffitti'd the post.

As a side note, this same kid "drew a map" on a section of wall as high up as he could reach, all the way to both sides and the floor. In my expereince, everything that could get the black sharpie off the wall also removed the paint... just something to think about! :)

Unknown said...

When we first moved to town, we rented an outrageously expensive apartment (not such a good idea with a kindergartener and second-grader). We survived 11 months without incident, but just before moving out, the name of my youngest appeared in dark blue ink pen on the wood of the vanity next to the toilet tissue dispenser. I was halfway through yelling her name before I realized she only wrote in all caps at the time, and that this was the handiwork of my eldest. >:( Two days later, the youngest did her part by drawing on the patio concrete in permanent marker! (teachable moment? -- sidewalk chalk and marker are *not the same*) Arrrghh.

Jenny said...

My son wrote his name with ink pen on the head of his stuffed pig. No mistaking who it belongs to!

Heather E. said...

Thanks to my kids ability to find the sharpies, I have discovered this trick. Color over the offending sharpie mark with a dry erase erase marker, then use a napkin to erase them both. Works great on hard surfaces, including our dining room table!

Angie White said...

I am the child that wrote my name on pretty much anything - my mom's car windows, the tables, you get the idea, but rather than markers, I used rocks... To break me of said habit, my mom wrote "MOM" in the table I used for homework with a pair of scissors, dug really deep!

The Slaughter 5 said...

all I have to say is "Magic Eraser"!

inadvertent farmer said...

At least it wasn't on the baby...had that happen once! Kim

Vindiciti said...

My 6 year old with autism has written his name on every wall in his room. If I erase it, he just writes it again. I guess I'll wait until he is older to erase it for good!

Rachel said...

Okay!!! I have the best advise and if you haven't already been told I will be your savior! White toothpaste and a soft cloth... no more Sharpie! Trust me it works! Consult wikihow if you don't believe me.
http://rachelkuhtz.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-remove-permanent-marker-from.html

kelly said...

my son is very into sharpies at 17 and leaves marks all over everywhere, the kitchen table included but some simple green and the scrubby side of the sponge usually does get it off!

Anonymous said...

Depending on the finish on your chair, a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will remove the permanent marker without causing damage.

Bekki said...

I remember my brother carving his initials into the wood banister of the entry way. He being the bright kid that he was, tried to pin it on someone else. I'm still trying to figure out why at 6, he owned his own pocket knife. i think my parents were asking for it.

jennifer said...

My daughter wrote her name in large letters on the top of a new dresser. She still swears it wasn't her thar did it. After 12 years it is still there.

Sara said...

Just a few days ago, I found my son's first name written in red sharpie on the backseat of my car... just above his booster seat. Yesterday, I happened to look up and found his initials written, in the same red sharpie, on the ceiling of the car.