Ode to Purple

Elise picked out her own
outfit, from bow to toe. Yes,
even her underwear is purple.

For the past few weeks, one of the most important things in our house is not a thing. It's purple. To use an analogy, purple is to Elise lately the way kittens are to Kalina.

What, exactly, does purple mean to our family? It can make getting dressed in the morning an easy achievement or a  tricky struggle depending on whether there's any weather-appropriate purple left in Elise's closet.

Purple passes the time in stores and other patience-testing situations. We go on purple hunts everywhere--Kalina no less enthusiastically than Elise, and Mommy joining in with the relieved excitement of, "They're neither crying nor hitting each other nor demanding things I don't have/won't buy them!"

It helps us decide, easily and without contest, who gets which plate/book/crayon/you name it. Both girls can agree on one thing: the purplest one belongs to Elise.

Even the minutest touch of purple counts--if we can see it, we can celebrate it. Sometimes we have to deem shades of blue or pink to be the royal color itself, lest the little one be too disappointed to hop into her crib, for instance. 


"Would you like some yellow pepper?" I ask the girl. "Purple," she requests. "What book should we read?" "Purple." "What should we do today?" "What would you like for your birthday?" "What color of kitten would you like?" "Purple." The answer is always the same.

Purple has it's own song, composed by Elise: "Purp purp purp purp purp," etc. It's sung to celebrate the most exciting purple occasions. 

Purple is not an attribute of an object, it is the object. It's not a cup, it's a purple! It's not a sticker, it's a purple! It's the most fundamental description of anything so fortunate as to bear the color.

I'm not sure what's drawn Elise to purple. Does she consider herself royalty? It may trace back to the purple dress she wore in her spring photos a while back--for weeks after that, she'd attempt to pull it out of her closet every morning. Every time we put it on her, she'd break out into her "I'm going to be in a picture!" smile.

Or maybe Elise is just a purple person. Vibrant? Dynamic? Deep? Individualistic? Only time will tell.