All Things Pink

When my son Matt was a little guy, his favorite color was purple ... funny that the school colors at the university he chose to attend for both his master's and Ph.D. degrees are purple and white. Yep, my Mattie loved purple ... not blue or red or green like most of his little boy friends ... my boy was a purple lover through and through. I think at one time during his childhood years, he talked me into buying him a purple comforter with matching sheets for his bed. Hmmm ... now that I think about it ... perhaps the lavender shirt and socks I dressed him in for Easter when he was a year old had something to do with Matt declaring purple to be his favorite color. It seems that he's passed along his affinity for purple to my granddaughter ... when I ask C.J. what her favorite color is, she always says, "Purple, Ghee ... I wub purple!" 

Sometimes I wonder who decided that the color pink would be associated with females and blue with males ... you know, like when a baby is born and nurses put pink caps on little girls and blue ones on little boys. If you go to any store in the country and check out the children's clothing department, you'll see tons of pink girl clothes and oodles of blue boy clothes. From the moment they are born, we begin to teach our kids that girls like pink and boys like blue. If a boy happens to like pink or a girl prefers blue, we make that child feel as if there is something "wrong" with them ... that he or she is different from all the other children. And that, in my opinion, is simply and utterly ridiculous.

My granddaughter likes to wear girly clothes ... skirts and dresses, frilly shirts and lacy socks ... and she loves, loves, loves to have her nails painted. But ... she also likes cars and trucks and airplanes, and she loves to wrestle and roughhouse. She plays with baby dolls and strollers, and she plays with trains and fire engines. And you know what's the most awesome thing about the diversity of her my granddaughter's interests? Matt and Becca do an absolutely amazing job of cultivating and encouraging C.J. to be C.J. ... they allow my sweet little C.J. to be C.J. From the top of her pretty little blonde-haired head to the tip of her adorable little painted purple toes ... my son and daughter-in-law let C.J. be C.J. I'm beyond proud of the two of them as parents ... they are raising their daughter to be secure and confident in who she is as a person ... nothing more, nothing less ... just the incredibly perfect person she is just exactly as she is.

Little girl number two is due in late July ... yep, Matt called it from the very beginning that C.J. will soon have a little sister. By the way, he was correct on C.J. as well ... even before they knew for sure, he said their fist baby was a girl. I can't help but wonder what this new little one will be like ... will she look like C.J. or be as busy as her big sister? One thing I know for sure ... the most important thing of all ... is that she will be loved greatly by every single member of her family. 

All things pink? Maybe, maybe not. All things unconditional love? You can bet your life on it ... you can indeed, friends ... you surely can indeed.