Okay, now that I’ve gotten all my political blogging out of the way (see yesterday’s), I can go back to my usual housewife/Mom/Air Force wife-type posts, tee hee.

Today I made a trip to Target to get something for my sister’s birthday (I know you’re reading this, Margaret!) I hadn’t been to Target since before Halloween — yeah, almost 2 entire weeks! So of course they wasted no time assembling the holiday aisles right at the entrance, just past the dollar spot bins.

Since one of the items I planned to get for my sister was just past the holiday items, we had to pass the holiday items.

And then we passed it.

The Wall.

It’s part of an aisle dedicated to stocking stuffers. You know what I’m talking about. See the picture above, it’s stuff like that. You know your 2-to-8-year-old kids suddenly lean out of the shopping cart and start pawing at everything on the aisle.

Floam, Play Doh, Star Wars action figures, Hot Wheels Cars, Crayola activities, Bratz miniatures, Polly Pockets, candy, puzzles, playing cards. Arranged in bins along the aisle, top to bottom.

Today Timmy was walking alongside me instead of riding in a shopping cart, since I was only running in for one thing, so he was able to easily reach into a bin filled with Star Wars Galactic Heroes miniature 3-packs. $9.99. This was rather cute, though, as the figures were “decorated”:

“No.”

“PLEEEEEEEEZE, Mommy?”

“No! Christmas is still 6 weeks away! Why don’t we ask Santa for it?”

“Because I’m going to ask Santa for a GeoTrax airport!”

“Oh.”

About a minute later: “Mommmmmmmmmmmy, I’ll be SOOOOOooooo SAAAAD if I can’t get this….”

“Would you like to spend your own money on it?”

“Yes!”

“Fine.”

And that’s exactly what we did. I came home and took $10 out of Timmy’s wallet.

I’m not trying to be mean. I’ve been VERY good about not getting the kids toys every time we go to the store. And now that Jake never comes with me to the store, I try even harder to avoid it.

And so it begins. For the next 6 weeks the kids’ senses (and mine) will be inundated with the sights and sounds of the holidays. While most of it is wonderful and magical, they’re also going to get flooded with Toys R Us wish books, Star Wars Clone Wars toy commercials, and Pixos ads.