Elmopalooza

I had to take away Kirk’s access to his movies. I had filled the two drawers of the upstairs entertainment consol with all our DVDs and VHS cartoons and kids shows. And every day he would unload them, looking for the Elmo tape. And he would carry around the cases and rip off pieces of them and just generally destroy all the video tape slip covers. Every single day. It was a constant mess and I was done with it. So now they’re hidden in the ottoman and his books are in the drawers.

I thought that he would freak out not having immediate access to the Elmo tape. But I guess he’s still young enough that outright deception and distraction still works. Now he just pulls out his Elmo Get Up and Go Songs book and grooves out to that.

I have no idea how we ended up with so many damn Elmo items. It’s not like we tried. The video, stuffed doll, mini-see-n-say, and bath-toy yellow submarine are from Grandma. The song book and sound effect toy are from our neighbors. The sheets are from Auntie. The Big Bird adventure book is from Nana. Really, I think the sippy cups are the only things we’ve actually bought—and that’s only because he honestly needed new ones!

But it’s really easy to end up buying merch without even noticing. We don’t own the movie Cars. Sure, we’ve seen it. K has it at daycare and my mom has it. So Kirk knows it and likes it. But he didn’t beg and plead for Cars pajamas, they just happened to be the only ones on sale and in his size. He didn’t demand Cars boots, they just happened to be the only boots in his size.

Star Wars merch, however, we purposely seek out. Too bad there aren’t any more movies.