In Defense of Vitamin Dora

Get ‘em here. (Not an ad. I’m just a mom, standing in front of a pharmacy shelf, asking it to make her life easier.)

Matthew and I had this conversation long before having kids: we’d rather them pretend to be their favourite characters than wear their favourite characters.

Example: I’d rather my preschooler wear a princess dress to the grocery store than walk around in a Frozen-branded sweatshirt.

While both outfits are supporting the Disney machine — not ideal, I know — one is also fuelling her world of imagination more than the other.

A princess doesn’t wear her own merch.

Aside:

I mentioned putting up an It’s a Wonderful Life poster for Christmas and Matthew SERIOUSLY SAID: “Why don’t you just decorate LIKE Mary Bailey instead of WITH Mary Bailey?”

So now I have to set up a record-player rotisserie in our nonfunctional fireplace. With travel posters hung in our windows. And I’m about to trash our banister. Don’t tell him. Tee-hee.

Back to branding and kids.

A few days ago, I was shopping for vitamins — this season is a doozy, immune-system-wise — and Ursula geeked out over Dora vitamin-D drops. So I bought some.

Again, not really our thing. Cartoons shouldn’t be at the pharmacy.

And then…she started taking vitamins. A tasteless drop on a spoon. Daily. WITH NO PROTEST.

In fact, at lunch today, conversation went like this:

URSULA: After lunch, I’m gonna go to the potty and have a big nap and wake up and have dinner and have a bath and put on my jammies and go to sleep and wake up and have breakfast and…HAVE DORA DROPS!!!!!

Worth it.