Before the chasing around last Sunday at Target, even before the lemonade and pretzel and the blushing over the iced mocha, Sophie and I stood in line at the snack counter – and I took a moment to reconsider the color purple.

The clerk handed me Sophie’s little cup, and offered a big container of silly straws for her to choose from. When she grabbed for a purple one, the clerk said, “Oh, of course! To match your dress.”

Of course. Purple is Sophie’s favorite color. And here comes something I’ve never really told anyone: I feel guilty about it.

Purple is a goofy, undignified, ridiculous color. It makes me think of those ladies in the purple hats — ladies of a certain age, an age I’m fast approaching — who look like idiots, running around town, eating lunch. (Or wait? Do they wear red hats? Anyhow, you get the point.) Purple is the color of the clearance rack, after you’ve picked all the good stuff out. It’s never hip. It’s very — well, it’s very obvious, that’s the best way I can put it.

If Sophie had chosen purple as her favorite color all on her own, it would be a different story. But it’s all my fault, this purple thing.

I feel terrible about it. I firmly believe that as a parent of a kid with special needs, I have an added responsibility to help Sophie present herself to the world in the best possible light. That means no overalls, for reasons I’ve explained earlier. And, as Sophie reached for that purple straw, I thought, damnit, it really should mean no purple.

Too late.

When I was pregnant with Annabelle and learned she was a girl (as early as possible, though I was always a big proponent of the surprise factor — til the ultrasound tech asked I wanted to know, at which point I practically fell off the table I was so excited) I chose as much pink as possible for her room.

That was a no-brainer. She was a girl, and pink (certain shades, anyway, like watermelon and magenta) is my favorite color. I’ve always sort of wished I had a different favorite color — like blue or green, something unusual, and now I’m super-jealous of anyone whose color has always been orange, since for a while it was so unpopular — but pink it is. You can’t fake your favorite color.

And so pink it was, for Annabelle.

Then I got pregnant with Sophie, and learned she was a girl, too. That choice was harder, but ultimately I went with the obvious: purple. Everyone who has a second girl, it seems, goes with purple.

I was nervous, even then. I controlled the purple thing very carefully when it came to Sophie’s nursery, adding shades of yellow, blue and green — no pink. I am very much against combining pink and purple. That’s a deal-killer for me. (You don’t want to hear me on the phone with a florist, ordering flowers, trust me.)

I was happy with the nursery, but it never occurred to me that when I painted those walls that very specific shade of lavender and chose the accessories just so, that I was also choosing Sophie’s favorite color.

Annabelle likes pink a lot, but her favorites vary. At the moment she’s all about green. But Sophie, she’s a purple girl all the way. Purple Cros, purple toothbrush, she even wants a purple DSi for her birthday. It’s her signature color, I joke, cringing inside.

And I have no one to blame but myself.

You might rightly ask yourself, after reading this post, who the fuck cares?

Really, doesn’t the world have bigger problems — don’t I have bigger problems?

Like a kid with a big bump on her chest from where the doctors knit her bones back together (twice) after sawing them open to fix her heart, a bump that reminds me every day that Sophie may not have seen her final open-heart surgery.

Or a community ripping itself apart over this ugly, ugly immigration debate.

Exactly, I say. Wouldn’t you rather contemplate the color purple?