Wherein I Eat My Words

There are so many "I'll never"s before you become a parent. One of my big ones was about commercialized characters. In my house, there were going to be no character shirts, shoes, backpacks, etc. etc. etc. I remember being awfully, naively proud of myself when Shayne was a toddler and we had acquired a Blue's Clues cup somewhere along the way, that he only knew it as his "doggie" cup. And I also specifically recall my cousin--and then veteran mom of a four year old--Shannon laughing about that and telling me to get over it.

Get over it I did. With the first lit-up eyes over a Thomas the Train anything, I was over it--hook, line, and sinker.

I was thinking about this about as I posted pictures from Christmas yesterday, wondering if perhaps I had gone too far in the opposite direction of my original convictions. One look at the Angry Birds or Superhero montages, and I'm sure you, too, see what I mean.

So I'm torn. On the one hand, you don't want your kids to be overly-commercialized walking advertisements. On the other, when a kid loves something, you take joy in their loving it (unless it's something really horrid, like Caillou or The Wiggles, and even then most parents suck it up anyway) and in your being able to provide it for them.

Anyway, I've long-since eaten my words, as evidenced most lately by my gifts to Shayne and Alex. After searching for six months for some attractive, matching, neutral, reasonably-priced bedding for their bunk beds that would satisfy all of us, I gave in this Christmas and let them have what they wanted:



And they were oh, so happy about it. And it was in their surprise (I thought you said no way?!) and gratitude that I reconciled myself to both the ugliness boldness and the commercialization of their bedsheets. It will be all too soon that they want plain and neutral and I'm-not-a-little-kid-anymore rooms, and not too far beyond that they will think back nostalgically on their character bedding and stuffed animals and t-shirts and costumes, the same way we all do.

Guess I'm not so torn, after all. Maybe still naive, but not torn.

Feel free to weigh in on how you keep the commercialized stuff to a minimum--or why you don't!