The case against pink . . . or is it for pink?

If you know me at all, you know that pink is just not in my color palatte.  It hasn’t always been this way . . .I had my room painted pink when I was maybe 7 or 8.  I think the crushing blow came when I was 12 . . . .there was some special event happening, so we went shopping for a dress.  I ended up with this pink and white frilly, lacey dress, and then this bizarrely awful hair piece thing that was also pink and frilly.  Had I been like 8 or 9, maybe even 11, it would’ve been fine.  Alas, I was 12 and on the verge of being a high schooler.  And really, what high school Freshman dreams about wearing a pink, frilly dress?  Not me!  From that moment on, pink has been on my “definitely do not wear” list.

Now, I should qualify the kind of pink that bugs me .. . it’s the pastely, baby pink.  I’m quite happy with fuschia or other bright versions of pink.  In fact, we had fuschia as a color in our wedding.  Baby pink, however, did not rear it’s ugly head.

So why this post on pink?  Ever since I gave birth to a sweet little girl, pink has been everywhere, ick!  I always told people that if we had a girl, she wouldn’t wear pink, until she was old enough to decide for herself.  Then, if she liked the color, well, then she’d wear it.  Since she’s still an infant, I’m still choosing.  I’m totally shocked to see how much pink there is in clothing for little girls . . .you’d think that there was no other color!  It’s been challenging, to say the least, to clothe her.  Sadly, not all friends and family have been so cooperative with the whole “no pink” thing.  One person gave us some cute onsies, too bad they were pink.  I was really tempted to return them, but I just put her in them to sleep . .. noone would see her, and my eyes would be closed 95% of the time, so it was okay.  Another person gave us a big, fluffy snow-type suit so that DD would be warm when we went walking.  So thoughtful, sadly, it was baby pink.  I about fell over when I saw that much pink!!

YIKES!!

Recently, a friend from church gave us some pink hand-me-downs.  We are just beginning to be friends, so I don’t think she knew about the “no pink” rule.  I didn’t have the heart to say “ick, pink, no thanks!!” (besides which, that would be rude), so I graciously accepted the dresses, thinking that I could send them to my bro, whose DD is 5 days younger than our DD.  Well, I was dyeing one of my wraps, and got the idea to dump the dresses in.  I figured, they couldn’t possibly get any worse!  I was soooo pleasantly surprised at how  they turned out . . .. a super cute purplish color.  Yipee!!  (In retrospect, I should have dumped that snowsuit in the dye bath as well!)

You'd never know they used to be crazy pink! LOL!

I do have two pieces of baby pink clothing that DD will wear . . .one is a knit sweater, and the other is a knit dress.  “Why are these okay?”, you ask?  Simple . .. they are heirlooms . .. things that my grandmother made for me when I was a tyke.  Yeah, so heirlooms fall into a totally different set of rules.  Arbitrary?  Probably, but how cool is it that DD gets to wear some of the same things  my grandma made for me?

It seems that the winds may be changing a bit.  A few years back, I bought some cute ballet slippers that are a medium-pink (think Pepto-Bismol-ish color).  I totally surprised myself, but I like them quite a bit.  This spring, I was noticing the blossoms on the dogwoods in our yard.  Which ones did I like the best?  You guessed it, the light and medium pink blossoms?  What is happening to me?!?!??!  I don’t foresee being converted to pink clothing for DD, but it seems that the gag effect elicited by all things pink is getting a bit weaker.  So if you see me or DD wearing something pinkish in the near future, don’t be surprised!!