This morning Vickey and I boarded a Southwest Airlines flight for Philadelphia. I’ve got a Public Relations Society of America conference to attend this weekend and she’s coming along to help spread the word about Codella Marketing’s new online newsroom solution, NewsCactus.

Our morning was a bit harried, waking only two hours before our flight left, getting both kids dressed and fed, taking out the trash, finishing packing, grabbing a bite to eat, orienting Grandma Snow so she’s ‘comfortable’ taking care of the kiddies for the weekend, loading up the car, getting to the airport while explaining to grandma how to drop Eliana off at school and what to do if they’re late (they weren’t, almost, but they made it on time), checking luggage at the Southwest kiosk that sounded alarms at both Vickey and I to exclaim that we were checking our luggage in late, taking the tram to the gate, purchasing a couple bottles of water for $5 (give me a break!) and stepping up to the gate with A and B boarding passes only to be the two last people in the C line (ugh!).

Yes, it was a crazy morning.

Interestingly, one of the articles I read during takeoff in Southwest’s Spirit Magazine was about blogging. The crux of the article: everyone should blog. The author’s two-year old twins even have a blog where they type things like ‘98qhoinwgoi’ and ‘[.,mcnzclki’ and have recently progressed to ‘truck’ and ‘Dora.’

Overall, I’d agree with the author. His point was that blogging now is like visiting the soda shop decades ago. There you’d catch-up on what’s going on with everyone. Today families and friends are scattered thousands of miles apart and a blog keeps the conversation going. It’s even better because you’re never trapped in a dull conversation, you can just leave the blog and go somewhere else without even offending the Blogger (unless you’re on a web cam, I guess).

At any rate, my morning reading caused pangs of guilt. I know I’ve been a slacker on the blogging front lately. Then again, if I measured my success against that of my family’s other bloggers, I’ve already won the gold medal.

As I mentioned in my last post, we were busy last week with family in town and the BYU vs. UNLV football game (took the kiddies a couple days to recover from that event).

Sunday evening Vickey left with her parents for the airport following our weekly traditional evening meal at the Coglianese home (the airport run was a bit later than grandma and grandpa would have liked, because we were hanging out at the Coglianese’s). While she was gone I decided I’d be a good dad and get the kids bathed and ready for bed by the time she returned.

I’m not crazy about tattoos, not even fake ones. Both the kids had tattoos, Eliana’s on her shoulder and Dominic’s on his wrist. While they were in the bath I decided to remove those pesky ink drawings. After all, as I explained to Eliana, our bodies are temples and we should keep them clean.

Soap and water wasn’t doing the trick, though, so I had to resort to stronger chemicals. I know now that rubbing alcohol is what you use (guess I missed that bit of information growing up). The best ‘remover’ I know of is a now-extinct chemical called Thoro (I think it was outlawed because it actually does what it claims to do).

I took a washcloth and turned the nearly empty Thoro bottle upside down to add a dime-shaped wet spot of Thoro to the washcloth. Then I rubbed Eliana’s shoulder.

Of course, the annoying tattoo came right off.

Next was Dominic’s turn. I grabbed his wrist, and with the same precision wiped his skin clean.

Then I made a mistake. I dipped the washcloth in the bubble bath and wrung it out to get the ink off the washcloth.

I left them to their destructive bath time water behavior and went to enter receipts into our money program on the computer (Vickey and I are trying very hard to share that responsibility – ‘trying’ being the key word).

About 10 minutes later Eliana started hollering to me that her skin was itchy and red. I went in and couldn’t see any redness. I told her to wash up and get out of the tub.

A couple minutes later, she began the emotional meltdown I can only imagine comes innate for six year-old girls (or my daughter’s just a drama queen).

This time when I went in to take a look I could see red blotches on various spots of her body. Then I turned on the faucet to fill up the bucket with fresh water, stood Dominic up and poured the water on him to remove the bubbles and upon further inspection, discovered his body also had some real bad red spots on it.

Suddenly my mind flashed back to dipping the washcloth into the tub with that dime-sized circle of Thoro on it. Oops, I thought.

Right then, the garage door opened and Vickey returned to the scene.

I emptied the tub and began running fresh water into it to rinse off the kids. Eliana was crying and screaming and carrying on like she was on the verge of death.

I called down to Vickey that I thought we had a little situation upstairs and could use her help. Her reaction was similar to Eliana’s, just not quite so immature.

By this time, I felt like dirt. My intensions were good. My execution flawless. But my methods left much to be desired, I guess.

Note to self: rubbing alcohol removes fake tattoos!

The scene just escalated from there. Vickey got on the phone with poison control. I took the kids into our bathtub to escape the tub where it happened. Eliana continued to carry on. And Dominic was uncomfortable and kept itching his legs and arm.

Poison control couldn’t locate anything online about Thoro except Web pages of people complaining that they couldn’t purchase it any more (despite this incident, I’m with them; that little bottle of Thoro is like my own little dry cleaning store). The woman on the phone said to keep fresh water flowing over their skin for 10 minutes or so and that if their skin blistered, to take them right away to the ER (it was probably a mistake for Vickey to repeat that information in front of Eliana).

Eliana stood in the shower, then got dried off and dressed with Vickey’s help. Dominic was perfectly happy to play in the tub, then in the shower for 20 minutes or so (he couldn’t understand the implications of blistering skin or going to the ER).

Once the kids were in bed Vickey and I Cloroxed the tubs and shower, and I was again reminded that I shouldn’t put Thoro on skin (I think I’ve got it now).

Vickey asked what prompted me to do that. In my experience of getting sticky things (paint, grease and yucky dirty stuff) off my hands, Thoro has always worked and never itched or left my hands with red spots. Then again, I haven’t bathed with traces of Thoro in the bathwater and my skin is more experienced than theirs.

My dad’s a chemist and I’m sure he could explain the diluting powers of water and why the Thoro burned their skin. Interestingly enough, the Thoro bottle doesn’t include ingredients or what to do if it gets on skin, just that you shouldn’t ingest it (nah, really?).

So, for those of you out there upset that you can’t purchase Thoro anymore, I hear ya.

But it’s probably best for my family that the precious remaining ounces of Thoro in our home be used on my suits and dress pants (it works like a charm) and not on skin.

Thankfully all was resolved and the kids (and I) are still alive. And yes, I’m sorry everyone.