Real Boys Wear Fuschia

We went shopping for new kids' sun hats today at the closet-sized retail store attached to the manufacturing facility for SunDay Afternoons. Larkin and Finn were hoping for bright colors and fabulous patterns and were a bit disappointed by the selection when we got there. Finn fell in love with a hot pink hat in his size very quickly, and Larkin was despondent that they only had a paler pink in her size.

The sales lady seemed to be very concerned by Finn's color selection and mounted a rather impressive offensive to convince him to choose something a little more... well, masculine. She went back into the warehouse and somehow managed to find all kinds of bright colors and patterns that are no longer manufactured. Finn was very diplomatic. He agreed to try on every hat she (increasingly desperately) offered. This happened about five times:

Sales Lady: How about this one? It has fishes and lizards! Look at that beautiful blue color! Do you like it?

Finn, putting on the hat: Yes, it's very nice.

Sales Lady: Wonderful! Would you like to buy this one?

Finn: No, I want the pink one.

On the plus side, in her desperate attempt to find Finn a suitable boy's hat, the sales lady did manage to find a hot pink number in Larkin's size. Once she was convinced that I really was fine with whichever hats they chose, we parted on good terms. She even said something about how nice it is to give children choices when they have so few in their lives... and she never once introduced the concept that Pink Is For Girls.

After the sun hats were acquired, we went grocery shopping. Finn solemnly informed the Co-op cashier that "the bad guys stuck used chewing gum under your counter." Without cracking a smile, she thanked him for his intelligence and said she would have the good guys clean it up later.

Still later, we were home and the kids were playing a computer game. It was a Blues Clues educational game where Blue would give out clues and the player had to guess where she was. I couldn't see the screen, but I heard Larkin guess "Antarctica" and then the somewhat insipid, congratulatory game's voice reply, "That's right! Outside in the snow!"