These days it doesn't matter what you are buying- whether it's a toothbrush, a tricycle (or bicycle), a toddler bed, sippy cups, puzzles or a lunchbox- you will likely take home something with a character on it. Choosing a toothbrush becomes less about soft, medium or hard and more about Cars, Bakugan or Pooh. You want to buy a toddler bed? How about Diego or one of those Disney princesses? And while you're at it, you can get the matching organization bins with Diego or that pretty princess.
I can classify diapers by company and their matching logos. Huggies opts for Winnie the Pooh whereas Pampers sticks with Sesame Street. How much extra am I paying for the character? I may have to resort to White Clouds! But then there are those Luv's diapers. They used to pay for that cute Blue's Clue's dog on them but now they just go with a generic purple monkey. Josh likes the monkey so we're cool with the change. So if diapers can go logo free, why can't wipes? Why do I need to see the Lion King on the wipes container to make me buy it (okay, it does match with the jungle themed nursery so I guess if I'm given the choice between Lion King and Toy Story, I'll go with Lion King).
My least favorite logo isn't even a character. It's not a he or a she, an animal or a plant but it's everywhere you look. Before Liam was born I was looking for a gift for my niece for Christmas. She was getting a new play kitchen (Dora, of course) and her mom suggested we buy her some play food to stock the shelves. I looked at K B Toys expecting this to be cinch. I was sure I could find some plastic ears of corn just about anywhere, right? I was wrong. The only play food on the shelf was french fries, hamburgers and fish filets. You've got it, McDonald's. Now I really do like chicken nuggets (even though they stopped serving them with honey) and there's nothing quite like a soggy salty McDonald's fry... but I wasn't about to pay money to stock the Dora kitchen with fast food. I had to go to a specialty toy store to find the nice wooden set from Melissa and Doug (thanks M & D for not selling out... yet). Now after Liam was born my mom and sister and I braved the Black Friday lines at Toys R Us (can't beat the train table and set for $80... mind you, we didn't buy the "Thomas" brand). Waiting just behind us was a dad who braved the lines for one item only. He said his daughter had told him it was the only think she wanted for Christmas that year and he was happy to have found it for $35. It was far worse than the Dora kitchen... it was a play McDonald's restaurant. I didn't ask him if he found the matching food set on the shelf.
Party supplies have just about gotten out of control too. It seems impossible to have a generic "dinosaur" birthday party. No, you need to have a Dinosaur Train party. A little boy can't have a choo-choo train party, it has to be Thomas. Girls can't have princess parties- it needs to be Jasmine or Ariel. You walk down the kids' aisle of the party store and it's like a Saturday morning cartoon line-up. You're surrounded by Handy Manny, My Little Pony, Batman, Power Rangers, Toy Story and Tinkerbell. Liam wanted to have a Dragon birthday party... make that a "How to Train Your Dragon" birthday party. For Josh's party we chose a fireman theme. Thankfully Fireman Sam (though a popular choice in our house) hasn't really hit the mass market yet (maybe if they made more than 8 episodes) so we were safe. It was just fire hats, firemen & fire trucks. Liam and I went shopping to pick out Joshua's party supplies. Liam reminded me how much Joshua loves Elmo but we had already chosen the fire fighter theme at that point so we were committed. We found him plates, napkins, hats & badges and on the way out we stopped to look at the balloons. "Oooh!" I heard myself say, "Maybe we can find a balloon with Elmo as a firefighter!"
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