OK, enough with the cute, toddler stuff. It was inevitable that sooner or later I'd stop updating everyone on what Collin and Cayla are doing and get philosophical on you. So, please allow me to digress for an evening. As a teacher and now a parent, I am quite aware of amount of product advertising that kids get bombarded with each day. From Coke machines in high schools to TV ads to happy meal toys to stickers in our doctor's office - it's everywhere. It pretty much makes Flannery and I sick, so we try to avoid multi-national corporations marketing products to our kids when we can. Our kids have never set foot in a McDonald's (read Fast Food Nation or watch Super Size Me and yours won't either). They don't watch much TV. And Flannery spent an hour in Target last year hunting down the only 2 lunchboxes that didn't have Spiderman or Barbie on them. We're nowhere near perfect. It took me about a year to get rid of our Disney Princess bowl set. We love Cayla's Nike swishy pants - just because they are Nike. We go gaga over the kids' Tevas. And the twins watched quite a bit of World Cup and Tour de France coverage.

So, why these thoughts now, you ask. Driving home today, I was reminded of the power of logos. We passed a Cottage Inn Pizza truck. It had this logo plastered on it's side.

Collin glances out his window and says, "Mama, I want pizza. I want my pizza truck." So, for those of you out to control the world, start marketing and designing your logo. And for those you looking to spend another hour in front of your computer screen, try playing the Retail Alphabet Game. I am excited to see that it is in it's 4th edition. I had my fourth graders (and by default their parents and all the teachers in the school) play editions 1,2, and 3.

Soapbox over.