In which I eat my words

*nom nom nom*

Today was a long day, a sadly unproductive attempt to get all of our Christmas shopping done. Ikea was sold out of the activity mat we had gone to buy for the little guy, and we found nothing there for my SIL who loves the store. The big toy superstore was sold out of large buckets of Duplo, and apparently there is a general shortage of the blocks. Shopping for my sisters, my other SIL, and my in-laws didn't go much better. I did manage to find a few things, but still have more to do.

Anyway.

We had one last store to go to and then I was done for the day. Well, so was the little guy. He was about five seconds away from a completely justified hunger-induced toddler meltdown, and he needed something to eat now.

I scooped him up and made a quick detour to the grocery store, where what did I spot but these:


Do you know what I said the first time I saw these, a couple weeks ago?

I believe it went something like this:

"Oh my goodness will you look at these, what sort of lazy parent do you have to be to buy pre-cut and pre-packaged apples and grapes?? And look at the price of these things! You could buy a bunch of grapes and a few apples for a fraction of the cost! Slice them yourself and toss them in a baggie with a few grapes! For goodness' sake, the things they come up with to cater to our laziness nowadays!"

And so on and so forth.

Well...when you're in desperate need of a quick and healthy snack, with no place and no time to prepare it, no knife to slice the apple, no sink to wash the grapes...suddenly those oh my goodness how lazy do you have to be snacks look really darn wonderful.

*BLUSH*

Yeah, I bought them. Yeah, my kid ate them. Yeah, he loved them.

Yeah, I'm eating my words.

Furthermore...

(Yes, there's more.)

That "one last store" I had to go to just happened to be Walmart. I despise the store, I really do, and I try to avoid it whenever I can, but I was having such a hard time finding gifts that I gave in and went there. I do that occasionally. I feel bad, but I do it. I've made my peace with that.

But on top of Walmart, I also generally try to avoid Disney. Big corporation, disgustingly unethical, always always always shoving their merchandise in your face everywhere you turn - I just try to avoid getting caught up in that. It helps that my husband's opinion of Disney is even lower than mine.

So we don't have a lot of Disney stuff in our house. There are a couple outfits that were given by my Disney-obsessed family members - that's fine, he wears those, as much as I cringe at letting him be a walking Disney billboard. But he really really likes the Cars stuff. One of said gift outfits is a Cars shirt and is one of his favourites. He points Cars stuff out everywhere we go. And honestly, it was kind of a cute movie (I give the credit to Pixar).

Get to the point, I know, sorry.

So we're at Walmart. So, it seems, is everyone else in the area. There are no shopping carts left. I've got an arm full of bags, my purse, a toddler who has had enough of shopping (though much calmer now that he's had his oh my goodness so lazy pre-cut and pre-packaged fruit) - and, irritatingly enough, a baby carrier I'd left in the car at the other end of the mall because I hadn't planned to use it. He finds this Cars book that makes him squeal with delight and gives him something to focus on while I quickly finish shopping, I buy it for him, and wuddayaknow, this Disney book doesn't leave his hands for the rest of the day.

Proof positive? Here ya go:


And a couple hours later:


I asked him if I could lay it on his bookshelf so he could go to sleep. He gave me the toddler version of a you can have this book when you pry it from my cold dead hands response.

Of all the books he has in this house...his favourite would have to be a Disney one.

Like I said.

*nom nom nom*