Cartoon Band-Aids

I have a love-hate relationship with cartoon characters on clothes and other items.  I don't really love them, especially on clothes that go out of the house, but they make Pickle SO happy that I will sometimes give up and just allow them.  If I can mitigate the saturation into something specific or small (a pair of snow boots, pajamas, etc.), I feel less like I'm parenting a walking Disney billboard.

I figured one fairly innocuous way to do this was to get character Band-Aids to keep around the house.  Everyone had the same idea with stocking stuffers, so we've got Band-Aids coming out our ears.  Princesses, Tinkerbell, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Monsters University, Mickey Mouse, and others - they're all living in our house.  I've tried to keep them in one spot in the house, a specific spot where all Band-Aids go that requires Mama or Daddy's help in order to access.  Not that Band-Aids are dangerous or anything, but it just seemed like a good thing to regulate.

We have literally four out of six of these boxes.

This started off great.  Band-Aids only went on valid boo-boos.  Over time, Pickle started embellishing certain injuries a little bit to try and score a sweet Band-Aid, so I'd play along on some of that.  I tried to keep the premise that these were just for when we get hurt, however.

...Until Christmas.  With all of the packages we got for Christmas, some of them got tucked around the house into hiding places.  Suddenly, all of the many, many of the toys that live in our house started getting into horrible accidents.  Luckily, these accidents didn't require stitches or anything - just five to ten Band-Aids for each animal.  This wasn't such a big deal for some of the toys, like dolls with hard faces/hands, or toys wearing clothes.  You just pull the Band-Aid off, and life is good. 

Some of the animals proved a little more problematic, however.  There were several stuffed animals with sort of fuzzy fur.  It wasn't even necessarily long fur, just fur.  Pickle didn't really discern onto what type of surface she was putting a Band-Aid, so we have about 10 stuffed animals with Hello Kitty Band-Aids stuck to them, possibly permanently.  Why, you ask?  It's almost like the Band-Aids decomposed, and so the sticky stuff is incredibly attached to the fur.  It's akin to the texture of rubber cement or sticky tack/gum.  This means that the Band-Aid rips into pieces when you try to remove it, and that you are then stuck trying to use forks, ice cubes, hair spray, and items from various other old wives' tales to try and remove the remaining Band-Aid.  In the end, the only trick that worked was extreme patience.

So, I guess the moral of this story is - Band-Aids are good for the one thing for which they are advertised.  If you have an inquisitive child, keep them locked up with the medicine and knives, or you're going to have a big mess on your hands.