pink pink PINK

Rumor has it that when we were little, my brother dominated with his left hand but my dad pretty much forced him to use his right hand.

My dad forced him to rewrite things with his right hand, throw a ball with his right hand, use a fork with his right; my dad forced my brother to become right-handed.

My dad forced my brother.

There are far much worse things in the world to be forced to do, but I still find this rumor to be disturbing. My dad is not the forcing type. He can’t hold his tongue, admitting to saying whatever is on his mind even when it’s hurtful, but he’s not really a forceful person. And besides that… really? You don’t like the fact that your child is using his left hand?!? You can’t be grateful he’s at least using his hand, period? Seems so silly to me.

Last week when Lovie and I were visiting my dad and eating dinner with him and some of his friends (he lives in an independent retirement community), his friends commented, “Oh she’s left handed, too?” Apparently their granddaughter is left-handed, and apparently being left-handed is some freaky, devilish thing to old folk.

I chuckled and told them that she uses both hands but has been using her left for the most part since very early on. My father looked at me with a bit of shock and then looked at Lovie who sat next to him, fork in hand, trying to pick up some cut-up “sgetti” with her left hand.

“No, you use-ah dis hand-ah,” he told her in his thick Italian accent, trying to tell her to use her right hand.

I was dumbfounded.

“She’s doing fine,” I calmly said. “Please let her use whatever hand she wants.”

“Oh I-ah know-ah,” he said. “I was jus-ah tryin’ to see-ah if she could use-ah the right hand-ah.”

That was all that was said about that.

Yesterday, Lovie and I stopped at the park again. We were there for over an hour and Lovie didn’t do anything with the playground equipment. Instead, she spent her time ogling the bikes that were parked next to the playground.  She’d make her way to a bike, a girly pink frilly bike, and stand and/or crouch next to it and touch different things on it before looking at me with a sad, pathetic I-want-a-bike face.

When she’d finally come over to me to talk, her face was still so pathetic looking and she would say, “Mama? I want a bike.”

“You want a bike, baby girl?”

“A pink one.”

“You want a pink bike, huh?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to talk to daddy about that.” Or, because we had the same conversation over and over again and again, “I know you want a bike, sweet baby.”

My girl not only wants a bike, she wants a pink one. A super girly pink bike that my eyes burn when seeing.

Holy hell do I hate pink. I’ve discussed that so many times on this blog. I hate pink.

But my girl, loves pink. She loves her pink princess dress (a pink tutu I got her for Valentine’s Day), she loves her pink blanket, she loves pink.

And now she wants a pink bike. Not just a bike, which she’s wanted for some time now, but a pink one.

It used to be that I would never allow pink in the house, never buy it and hide anything pink gifted to us. I hate pink. But I always said that I’d cave once she could ask for it; I would never force my hatred of pink onto her.

So I guess it’s time to get my left-hand dominating girly girl a pink bike, huh?