As Seen on TV

A rite of passage for any child is to heed the siren song of the television commercial. For the most part we have tried to keep Joshua away from commercial programming for kids (it is Noggin, Disney, and PBS or DVDs for the most part). Recently though he has started watching more and more kids' shows that feature commercials.

The object of his desire dangled in front of his young, consumer eyes in 30 second sound bites is called Yogos. They are described as a ‘yogurt covered fruity treat’. The first time I realized that the Mud Puddle had fallen victim to the flashy images and high octane sound track of a commercial when we were in the market a couple of weeks ago. Headed down the juice and sale aisle all of a sudden from the cart comes “YOGOS!!!!” at the top of his lungs. I nearly fell over from fright. Good God in Heaven, what could possibly cause such an outburst?

He had spied with his eagle eyes the Yogos boxes in the aisle. Now a couple things on this: A. the kid can’t spell so how many times did he have to see the commercial in order to remember exactly what the box looked liked and b. how bad a mother am I that I had no idea what he was talking about? They could have been showing him commercials for crack and I wouldn’t have known it apparently. I realized then just how much of what he watches I tune out.

So I checked out the box and they seemed like they were ok, slightly more nutritious than chocolate. And we put them in the carriage. But he wanted to hold them. And every five seconds would ask if he could have some. Now, this is the same little boy that ‘gets’ the idea of paying for something before you use it. We have had this conversation many times at the bookstore and he usually is pretty good. But these Yogo things had a hold on him that I had never seen before.
We finally paid and he got his Yogos, I tried one and thought they were gross but he loves them.

And now every time the commercial comes on I hear him shouting from the living room, “GO YOGOs!!” He is apparently now a member of the Church of Yogo. Who knew?
I guess a $3 packet of yogurt balls is better than the new, expensive and highly breakable toy du jour.