The evils of moon sand

I was all set to blog about trying to raise two very different boys the same and equally, when Q gave me a much better topic, the evils of Moon Sand. In a much larger sense, the evils of TV commercial mail order products for children. I like to refer to O as the marketer's dream, the kid is the ultimate childhood consumer with an endless amount of wants and desires. I think it's partly a product of his generation and the continual bombardment of advertising they see, not only on TV, but the internet as well. O goes beyond that, at 2 he would ask what your favorite Pixar movie was, he can tell you the upcoming toys for kids meals at fast food restaurants, we choose cereals based on the enclosed movie toy, if it's branded, copyrighted, or trademarked, he has an interest in it. This is especially true if it's advertised on TV (My wife and I joke when fast forwarding through Tivo'd shows about rewinding to watch a commercial, because that's what O does, he enjoys ads.). He's also spoiled, not just by his parents, but grandparents, and aunts and uncles, so his many desires are often indulged. The worst of these have been of the mail order/act now and receive this free bonus variety. We all grew up with Playdoh, a wonderful multi-colored clay with endless possibilities for fun. It was messy, but manageable, you could use one piece to clump up the rest and pick it up, it was usually possible to keep the colors separate as well. Alas, it had it's problems, if left out, it would dry up and no longer be of use. Along comes Moon Sand, it won't dry out ever, you can mold and shape it into anything you want, it comes in multi-colors, and has a handy carrying case to play and store it in. Don't be fooled by the ads, you can put it in one of the molds, but it's never all coming back out, and what does come out is not the shape of the mold. It doesn't stay in the carrying case, it sticks to everything, clothes, hands the table, the floor, then gets tracked everywhere. I attempted to curb this by instructing Q to stay at the table and tell me when he was done playing and I would get him. Silly me, instead he came over and showed me how it was sticking to his knees, his socks, and his shirt and to tell me it spilled everywhere. We started with 3 colors, we now have one that looks like a colored sand bottle shaken up. The worst part is it never dries up, so you never have an excuse to throw it away, it's a slow battle of attrition, sweeping bits of it away with every use. As big of pain as Moon Sand is, there is one that is more evil, and I'm not talking about the Pixos/Aquadots that got recalled for containing GHB, I am talking about Floam. I'm really not sure what you are supposed to do with it, or what the point is, but it's not what they show in the commercial. Floam is like brightly colored snot mixed with super glue and tiny styrofoam pellets. I'm not sure what you can do with it, because as soon as I took some out of the container it wouldn't come off my hands. It's one of those things that makes you want to jump around yell "ooh ooh, get it off, get it off!!!!!", it just feels gross. Worse, it took me 4 times washing my hands with soap before I felt I had gotten most of it off. I drew the line with the Floam, it will never be played with again, a man can only stand so much. Next time we can discuss Lego sets that you put together once and then will never be able to find all the pieces to put it together ever again, and yet boys insist on playing with them and wanting more sets.