Marketing Gone Bad

Sabine walks with me at the grocery store and Target. This is for 2 reasons. 1. She's too big now and if my shopping trip is a big one she crushes the groceries. 2. She does balancing acts on the edge of the cart while I'm busy picking out food. I plan on making it through her childhood without a trip to the ER and a visit from Social Services. Quick, knock on wood! Now no one can argue against the fact that companies put snacks, cereals and candy at the exact eye level of my two year old. Which is how we ended up with this:Sabine ate TWO bites of one of these yogurts, said they were "Gwoss" and hasn't touched one since. I have tricked Sarah into eating them but even she isn't a fan. Yesterday we were at Safeway. Sabine was walking alongside me and helping me shop. We were just about done when we rounded a corner end cap and saw this:

Sabine instantly ran over to it and said "Oh, Mom, wook!!" Remember to translate Sabine's letters or you'll be lost. I acted like I thought this Mac-n-cheese was awesome and tried to move on. Sabine wasn't done. I decided that she had been such a good kid on this particular trip that she could have a box of it. So this was our conversation: (D=Most letters)
M-"Bug, you've been so good. Do you want to get a box?"

S-"No Mom! Dat der Doggies. Dee dat Doggy?"

M-"Oh, no, that's for little girls like you . Do you want some?"

S-"But Mom dat dood der doggies."

M-"Sabine, this is Macaroni and Cheese. Do you want a box?"

S-"Yeah! Dancks Mom."
Kids don't even have to like the character displayed on these items. They just love seeing cartoons plastered all over the store. Well, if she wasn't confused by Scooby already, she was on out trip to Target today. We went down the Pet Care aisle to get some new litter for my precious kitties. THIS is what Sabine saw before we even stepped into the aisle:

Here we go again:

S-"Oh, Mom, wook."

M-"Oh, Wow."

S-"Mom, pees we can get dees?"

M-"Um, no, that's dog food sweetie. It's for dogs."

S-"Oh."

I'm all for marketing, but not when it confuses my children and draws them into products they don't need. It makes shopping with kids really hard and I become the big meanie when I say "No" to every Dora item Sabine sees. So, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and Sarah is sleeping. Sabine won't nap and I told her to put a movie in. She chose "The Ant Bully" (stoooooopid movie). She put it in as I sat down and 5 minutes later, I realized I didn't hear it playing. I went to see if it was loading correctly and it wasn't. It was stuck. All of Sabine's movies have loading problems because she puts her grubby hands all over them. So I took it out, looked at it and started wiping something thick and gross off of it. Sabine wipes off her own movies occasionally complete with the heavy, close mouth breathe and shirt wipe. When she saw me wiping it she said to me "Mom, I alweady did dat. Wit my milk. I used my milk." Yup, that would have to be what I was wiping off. Milk. On a DVD. To clean it. I love my child.