When you have a little girl, you soon discover that the world expects, no, it DEMANDS you dress your daughter in nothing but pink at all times. Don't even THINK about putting her in red! That is cheating and as punishment someone will most certainly refer to your baby as a boy with remarks such as "Isn't he adorable! How old is he?" or, worse yet, "Hey there little buddy!" You will get such comments for all purple, green, yellow, white and orange outfits as well. I learned my lesson once quite clearly when I dressed Reagan in a beautiful pale blue DRESS. Long frilly dress. It matched her eyes beautifully. Some delightful person at church came up to me and made some comments about Reagan, continually referring to her as "he" and "him". When I politely and ever-so-gently corrected my misled parishioner, she got very defensive and said "Well! She IS wearing blue!" Not willing to let this go, because well, I'm crazy, I responded with "But its a blue DRESS." "Still...its blue," she said tapping my arm as if I were some very unfortunate soul who could not fully see what color I had put on my child. "Its a dress!"
I don't really love the color pink. When I painted Reagan's room I had a few people make some strange comments about how we must think it was going to be a boy because why else would would pick the bright-purple-blue hue that we had slathered on the walls? I just liked the color. And if I had known it would be a girl, which I truly suspected all along, I was NOT going to smear the walls in pink. It just wouldn't be something I could stand to look at every single day.
When Reagan was born, we got tons of pink clothes. Yes, I bought them too. And yes, she looks adorable in pink. I won't deny it. It easy to do pink clothes because then I don't have to explain why on earth I would dress my poor defenseless daughter in yellow? I mean seriously, I must have lost my mind when I did that. Please don't tell Reagan I ever let her wear anything other than pink. She shouldn't know how her mother failed her at such a young age! The majority of her closet is pink - or at least has a stripe or a polka dot in some shade of pink. The inappropriately colored outfits I have for her I only allow her to wear at home - where I know she is a girl and I won't refer to her as "my little buddy".
You would think the color has grown on me. And perhaps, maybe to some degree it has.
But Wednesday morning, when Reagan woke up I declared pink my new enemy. The color pink is most definitely NOT welcome in my child's eye!! Yes, she is now the proud carrier of conjunctivitis - more famously known as "pink eye". Poor little girl. It looks like some horrible snot monster nibbled on her eyes filling them with horrid green puss, her eyeballs bloodshot, and her eyelids almost swelled shut. Its that gross and I would be remiss to not share such extraordinarily excruciating details with all of you.
My message to pink: please leave us alone. We've done our best to stoop to society's standards of using pink, and only pink, for Reagan's clothing. We now politely but firmly request you leave her eyes. They were much more beautiful before you came along.
In fact, they were blue.
1 comment:
JEAN!!! You have SO MUCH talent as a writer.
First let me say though, I'm so sorry to hear about Reagan's pink-eye, that is yucky and no fun at all! I hope it clears up soon.
now, you so need to submit your writing to somwhere or keep your collections of stories I love to read, and publish them. Moms around the world will flock to stores to buy this book. :) I love these posts.
My only complaint as the mother of a boy - who can wear any color BUT pink, is that most stores favor girls clothing. Meijers, for instance. Has racks and racks of adorable girls clothing. And only 2 small racks of boys. Not kidding! I have very little choice. Maybe you'll write about that for your next child. :) ~much love...
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