I was casting about on the Internet, searching for something to spark my interest that pertains to parenting, but isn't celebrity or octuplet-centered. Tough going out there right now! Anyway, I stumbled across this website: www.commercialfreechildhood.org.

Since the fact that it offered me a chance to "vote" on the worst toy offering of the yea r- and I use the word "toy" loosely - I couldn't pass it up. As I had suspected ... I am pretty out of touch with, well, almost everything in the toy world. Perhaps blessedly so.

It has long been a private disappointment that Lego is so obscenely commercialized, tied to every single action movie that exists, even ones that are not for kids, like The Dark Night, which was rated PG-13. But Lego seems to be perfectly happy jumping on the Batman bandwagon!

What happened to Lego? Why are they all sold in kits, kits that show the potential within, as it were, instead of letting kids come up with what they think some rocket or car looks like without the benefit of the packaging into a "kit?" And, why do they seem targeting specifically at boys?

But ... moving on. Does anyone besides me remember Book Fairs at public schools? Or when you took home a teeny catalog from Scholastic, ordered some books, and then, weeks later, your teacher would distribute them to eager students?

Now, Scholastic still sells books, but they also sell Wii games (the M&M version, no less), Hannah Montana jewelry and lip gloss. To elementary school students.

What is happening out there, right under our noses? When did children become these endless sources of money for lip gloss, of all things, and when did schools throw out the welcome mat to these companies? Are schools really so poor that they can justify letting McDonald's provide their report cards, which is what happened in Florida.

I guess the saddest thing is the fact that so many toys now are tied to something else, and so they become ads in and of themselves. Do you ever think about how hard it is to buy your child just regular products WITHOUT some irksome character like Dora or Elmo?

And how we, as consumers, are A-OK with Disney everything in our homes, right on down to the toothpaste beside the sink, which is used after the Dora potty seat and before the Ariel nightgown ... it never ends. But I really, really wish it would.

I wish it bothered more people, I hope that parents are involved in schools enough to make their complaints known, as did one mother in Seminole County, Fla., who was incensed enough at the McDonald's report card, that offered a Happy Meal for good grades, that she gathered 2000 signatures, and ended that particular advertising campaign.

And, if you feel so inclined, check out the Commercial Free Childhood website: food for thought, not a report card.

Leigh appears Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh at her blog Flipper and Me.