Mommying Magic #1: dish soap

I'm toying with the idea of doing a weekly post on the little awesome things I discover while mommying. I just get really excited when I find things that make all my little jobs a whole ton easier, or when I find a legitimately no-fail recipe, so I'm going to start listing them on here in hopes that they'll come in handy for someone.

so...

TIP #1: DISH SOAP IS YOUR BEST FRIEND

Here is why:

1. A soaped-up sponge cleans all the junk off the stove like nobody's business. Super fast. Even the baked on burnt rice boil-over that you have been meaning to get to for a month(hypothetically, of course...)

***2. It is a magical fast scrubber-outer for all things laundry. Especially the big one: Baby poop. ***

I rinse the spot out, put on a little dishsoap, and scrub the stain against itself. Like you're washing your hands, only with half the stained part over each hand. Then rinse the soap out. If it's a reeeeally bad one, I might do it twice, but it never takes long. It probably will not look completely white by the time you've rubbed the clothes together a bit, but throw it in the wash and presto! Stain free! Even white onesies.

3. And while you are in the scrubbing mood, dishsoap also gets stains out of our carpet really well. Just a little soapy water and an old kitchen sponge and bonus! you get a quick bicep workout, too. I'm sure you should probably spot test before going crazy with this one, though.

4. Forget the hand soap in the kitchen--this gets you soooo much cleaner, faster. Even if you just greased a casserole dish with your bare hand(shh...). Also you can use the dispenser to squirt soap on your sponge when doing the dishes. No having to get under the sink...we allllll know it's creepy under there.

5. Super good for sticky countertops/walls near the stove top where grease has splattered. I wish I had known this in Russia when I moved into apartment #2 and discovered the oil-encased gretchka-cooking kitchen area.

6. It actually works surprisingly well for cleaning off the white rubber/fake leather parts on shoes. Go figure.

7. It is good for washing dishes. Haha.

I know there is a huge hype on Pinterest about blue Dawn dishsoap and all the wonderful things it can do for your shower walls, but so far I've been doing great with my huge bottle of cheap orange Ajax. But if there are any blue Dawn experts out there, I'd love to know if it really does have incredible powers worth paying twice as much for.

Let me know if there are other great things that didn't make my list!