A Cautionary Tale about Stickers

Do your kids stick stickers on their skin? Miss A does. Although, not anymore if I can help it. The other day we had another appointment, an optometrist appointment for A. Here she is pointing at the nose of a finger puppet.



So because she was so well behaved she was given her pick of treats. (Again, just as at the dentist I'm sure the not so well behaved get treats as well) She chose a ring, a plane, a coloring book and a tinkerbell sticker. She was asked what she would do with the sticker, to which she replied "Stick it on my arm." And that is what she did. I didn't think anything of it because it's something she does all the time. But apparently this particular sticker had crazy glue for it's adhesive. When it was bedtime and we were going through our routine of removing elastics from hair and anything that may remain on the skin, (including paint, glue or stickers) we attempted to remove the tinkerbell sticker. It seemed cemented in place and simply pulling a tiny bit of the corner up inducing much screaming. So we left it be.

But last evening I noticed it was red around the edges and it seemed to be irritating her skin. I decided one way or the other, it had to go. So I explained to her that it needed to come off and we commenced soaking and soaping it. As seen here.








Can you tell by her expression how exhausting it was? There was still much screaming as it seemed like torture to remove it. Eventually I let her do it by herself while I supervised since if I tried to help the screaming only got louder. So she peeled tiny bit of sticker, by tiny bit off as she kept adding more and more soap to aid in the task. When all of the sticker seemed to be gone we rejoiced but unfortunately we celebrated too soon. Upon closer inspection I could see that although the paper was gone the GLUE remained. As seen here. When I tried to rub it off she screamed in pain.



Then I had a brainwave. Baby Oil. I probably should have used it from the start but I honestly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. So once it was finally gone a slight redness remained but we were both relieved. I'm sure it was bothering her but she was afraid to take it off because she knew it was going to hurt.



Seriously, has anyone else every experienced this? I am seriously planning on calling the optometrist office to warn them that kids should not be putting those stickers on their skin. Does that sound crazy? Miss A is actually quite tough, if something hurts her that much I know it must be bad.

Anyway, I don't think she'll be wanting to put any stickers on her skin anytime soon and when the memory fades I will remind her why it's a terribly bad idea.