Fun at the Grocery Store. 

Fun at the Grocery Store.

We are pretty sure that our kids are a marketing executive's dream. Product placement, gimmicks and themed cereals are hitting our house with such force that I find myself wondering, "Hm. If I put a Star Wars sticker on this pack of chicken cutlets, I wonder if they'll eat them, thinking they're Luke Skywalker chicken?"
Last night at the supermarket I came across some "pluots." Apparently fruit farmers have nothing better to do with their time now than to cross breed fruits, hence the mixture of a plum and apricot. But apparently, most rational adults had already noted that for the price of one pluot, you can buy three plums and three apricots, separately. So they must've called those genius marketing professionals whose days revolve around antagonizing parents of young children with their crazy strategies. As I looked at the pluots, I could almost see the sinister, mustache-twitching advertising guy sitting in his chair, smoking a cigar, saying, "Heh-heh-heh... I know! We'll take these pluots and instead of the usual 'sunkist' sticker, we'll put a DINOSAUR sticker on them call them dinosaur eggs, and voila! Those stupid Elios will buy them by the case." No sooner had all of this flashed into my mind, than Rory screamed, "LOOK! Mommy, DINOSAUR APPLES! I WANT DINOSAUR APPLES!" This wasn't the first time we've been victims of commercialization. About two months ago, Kellog's started putting pictures of Star Wars characters on their cereals. That, however, actually worked out for us, because we were able to get the kids to eat any sugar-free, high fiber cereal, regardless of taste, because it was disguised as "Darth Vader Cereal" or "Luke Skywalker O's". Breakfast took an hour, though, because in between bites, we'd hear, "Ho. Perrrr. Ho. Perrrr. I think this cereal is turning me into Darth Vader!" (Ho-per is their rendition of the sound of Darth Vader's breathing through his mask.) Even Riley Katie has jumped on the gimmick bandwagon. A few weeks ago we mistakenly bought a different kind of diapers that didn't have Elmo on them, and when I tried to change her, she grabbed the diaper from my hand and asked indignantly, "Melmo? MELMO? NO!"
This morning, however, I have reached my limit. We're now even feeling pressure to make laundry decisions based on sly marketing. When Connor woke up, I very stupidly thought I could grab an extra few minutes to finish the day's lesson plan by telling him that he could watch ten minutes of tv. Three minutes into it, he came barreling in the office yelling, "MOMMY! We need to buy oxy-clean! Please, PLEASE buy me oxi-clean!" "Why? Are you having problems with stains?" "Oxi-clean takes off stains like MAGIC! You know, Harry Potter! MAGIC! I can magic my shirts!" So heaven help us all next week when we're in Disney, mecca of catering to the younger demographic.