Your preschool sounds great--it shocks me sometimes, the extent to which children are targeted for marketing, and the fact that so many people don't see any problem with it, thinking the characters are just cute and fun. I heard an interview with Benjamin Barber ("Consumed") on CBC radio last week, and he had some really horrifying statistics about the percentage of small children's vocabularies that are brand names; what really blew me away was that the interviewer really didn't seem to get it ("but shopping is fun!"). I'm going to get his book from the library--it sounded very interesting.
I know the lads will have to live in the "real world" some day, but I don't see anything wrong with protecting them from forces that seek to manufacture desire in them for "stuff" (not all of which is necessarily good for them) before they are old enough to have developed the ability to resist some of that manipulation. I also want to get them used to the idea that every purchase has some potential costs of other sorts--it's important to me that they think about whether the person who made the thing in question got paid properly to make it, in a place that was safe and healthy for the workers, for instance.
Your daughter's birthday party sounds perfect! I think we'll try the same thing this year.
Wish we lived close enough to get together for a cuppa--but this is the next best thing!
peace
minnie
