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?

Yesterday at Target (before things when south, before the running and the chasing and the time out) Sophie and I had a snack.

She was eating her pretzel and lemonade and I was questioning the wisdom of ordering a premade sandwich when suddenly, she got up from the table. I wasn’t alarmed, she didn’t go far. There’s a Starbucks in our Target, and she got up to stand in the line where you go to pick up drinks.

Sophie looked very confident and happy. A girl on a mission.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Ordering an iced mocha,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Oh. But you don’t have any money.”

In that moment, it occured to me that it’s very unusual for Sophie to be caught off guard. This is the girl with an answer to everything.

She turned bright red, smiled, and sheepishly returned to the table and sat back down.

Then we both cracked up.

I have been working on my follow-thru. If I threaten a time out, I stick to it. If I count to three — and actually get to three — there are consequences. And if I promise to withhold a treat or toy or some other coveted something, I keep my promise.

No, I’m not perfect at this, but I’ve been a lot better lately.

It’s not really working. I thought we’d made progress a few days ago, after a particularly painful trip to Safeway, but the same thing happened yesterday in Target — Sophie ran away from me and to her chagrin wound up riding in the cart the rest of the trip. She apologized profusely after the Safeway incident, but no amount of reminders and threats prevented it in Target. Again, more apologies, but I stuck to my guns: no toys, no chocolate milk, and she couldn’t hold her new Dora panties til we got home. She was sweet as pie — til she got those panties.

The other day, I admonished Sophie for busting into Annabelle’s jazz classd while it was in progress. I (literally) dragged her out of the classroom and plunked her down on a bench, patiently (well, with as much patience as I could muster) explaining that this was Annabelle’s class, she could watch through the window but couldn’t go in, she’d already had her dance class earlier that morning, and when she’s 8 she can take jazz, too. (Well, I thought to myself, as long as she quits disrupting her sister’s class.)

Lecture over, I turned for a moment to speak to another parent, and Sophie ran right back into the classroom. I opened the door (again) to chase her down (again) but before I could get to her, the teacher grabbed Sophie’s hand  and began leading her through the steps of the routine.

She smiled a big f-you smile as I turned, shrugged my shoulders in defeat and walked out to take my own place on the bench. I could take the teacher aside and ask her to quit doing that, but the truth is that the most important thing in a situation like this is to avoid disrupting the class. For the teacher, it was clearly easier to grab Sophie’s hand than to stop class to watch me grab and drag her from the room. I get it. But how will things ever get better?

A wise friend I’ve known close to forever — she’s a child psychologist and her daughter and Annabelle have taken ballet together since they were 3, so she’s known Sophie that long — caught my eye as I closed the door behind me.

“You know,” she said with a rueful smile, “they say behavior modification really doesn’t work. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

I know the comment was designed to make me feel better, but as you might imagine, it didn’t.

I have been thinking a lot about a young friend of mine. Let’s call her Rose.

Rose is 11. She’s in sixth grade. She’s a totally kick-ass kid — I’ve had the privilege of watching her grow since she was in third grade, and so shy she wouldn’t look you in the eye. Now she’s a world-class eavesdropper and question-asker, a future journalist for sure. She’s cut her long, thick hair to her shoulders and although there’s still a good bit of tomboy in her, she’s started wearing necklaces with her Converse.

Her future is bright. (And don’t get me started on her parents, and how truly amazing they are, or I’ll be crying for sure.)

But dark clouds arrived last week, in the form of our governor’s signature on that immigration bill you’ve no doubt heard of, even if you reside on the moon.

Welcome to Arizona, folks. This place sucks. No amount of efforts at government reform over the last decade and a half (from term limits to campaign finance reform to redistricting) has been able to turn our absolutely off-the-far-edge-of-the-right-wing Legislature normal. You already know about our crazy (and I mean that literally) sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Now you are meeting the rest of the state on CNN. Feel my pain.

And feel Rose’s pain. Rose is an American citizen, but if you were a law enforcement officer in Arizona, you might just assume from the color of her skin that she’s an illegal immigrant. Rose is adopted; she’s Mexican by birth. Now her parents might have to pack her passport with her lunch box. And last week, they had to tell her about the law and prepare her in case someone pulls her aside.

That really does make me cry.

There’s much to debate over this immigration legislation — sure, much of it is what the federal government was already supposed to be doing. Yes, there is crime — the death of the rancher that prompted this whole thing is tragic — and I suppose there would be economic implications of illegal immigration if there were actually jobs to “steal” in this country anymore. I know, something needs to be done. And by signing that bill into law (a law I personally doubt will ever actually be enacted — I think the courts will nab it before it goes into effect) perhaps our ill-informed, plastic-surgery-preoccupied (have you seen pictures of the much different looking Jan Brewer from the 1980s?) governor will prompt Congress to do something smart.

But for now, this whole thing is dumb dumb dumb. Hurtful and divisive and sad.

So I can’t stop thinking about Rose, and her family, and how unfair it is that this girl is just as much a citizen of the United States of America as my daughters — yet somehow, after Friday, has been relegated to a different class.

Even if Rose wasn’t technically a citizen, but instead was simply a little girl whose family had managed to get her here, looking for a better life, would she deserve to be in a different class, to be given a different status as a human being? She’d still be an 11 year old girl in a necklace and Cons, watching the world very carefully.

I wonder what she thinks about all this.

NOTE: I don’t pretend to have any answers about immigration, only questions. But if you are looking for a smart authority on the subject, be sure to check in with my dear friend/mentor/former colleague Terry Greene Sterling.

Ray built a climbing wall in our house, in the garage-converted-to-an-office that he’s now turning into a “Man Cave.”

The girls adore the wall. And he loves teaching them to climb.

I really like the photo above, of Sophie making it to the top in her PJs (don’t worry, Ray is right under her, and there’s a thick pad on the ground, too) but my favorite is this one, of him helping her down.

When I was almost 7, I had all sorts of ideas as to what I wanted to be when I grew up. Most of the time I wanted to be a poet. I was reminded of that ridiculous notion for the gazillionth time this morning as I listened to some particularly fantastic poetry on “Morning Edition” in honor of National Poetry Month.

You know, I thought to myself as I cracked open the first Diet Coke of the morning and washed down a Claritin-D and a multi-vitamin, it’s really really easy to write bad poetry and really really hard to write good poetry.

That is not my point here. My point is this. No one told me when I was almost 7 that there was no way I was going to end up as a poet, no matter how hard I tried. No one set any such limitations — not my parents, my teachers or society.

When you are almost 7, the possibilities are pretty endless.

Enter Sophie. She’s almost 7. It’s been a while since she’s talked about what she wants to be when she grows up, but suddenly, it’s back as a topic of conversation.

Mostly, Sophie wants to be a veterniarian. But the other day she announced, “I be a mother when I grow up!”

That, for obvious reasons, is the biggest heartbreaker of all for me, although I do maintain that I’ll do everything in my power (well, you know what I mean) to make sure that at the very least, Sophie falls in love and has great sex.

The girls had just settled into their booster seats in the car this morning, when — probably motivated by the strong desire to own the large rainbow pack of dry-erase markers we were bringing to Ms. Y — Sophie asked, “Can I be a teacher when I grow up?”

“Of course!” replied Annabelle, whose own list currently includes fashion designer, ballerina, actress, writer and scientist. “You can be anything you want to be, Sophie!”

I didn’t say a word.

But it did occur to me, as I backed out of the driveway and we headed off into the day, that Sophie is already quite a teacher.

Sophie’s IEP meeting was last week, and we’re still in the throes of finalizing/reviewing/sign-seal-and-delivering, but things seem to be falling into place.

It’s such a detailed process, designed to address every possible angle of your kid and her needs, but really what I find is that it lulls you (or me, anyway) into a false sense of security.

Consider the following.

The meeting was Friday. Monday (ok, it might have been Tuesday) evening we were winding down, discussing the day’s highlights, and Sophie informed me that she had eaten some M&Ms.

“Yum yum!” she announced, pantomiming the act of the gobble. I was curious.

“Where’d you get those?”

She mentioned the name of the special ed teacher at school. Upon further discussion, it became clear that Sophie had behaved well during a session, and was rewarded with what I’m guessing was one or two M&Ms.

Really, no big deal. Except that we spent a long time in that IEP meeting just days before talking about various reward systems — that the Elmo chart (which became a Christmas chart, then a Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba chart) had fallen by the wayside, that sometimes it worked to hold onto Sophie’s favorite self-soothing paintbrush during a session and give it to her at the end in honor of a job well done.

No one mentioned M&Ms. I’m sure that’s because there are all sorts of food rules at school these days. I’m all in favor of that. If I’m going to let my kid have junk food, I want to be in control of it. That said, I really don’t care about occasional treats. (This is a whole other discussion for another day, but I think it’s a bad idea to never let your kid have treats; it only makes her obsessed with getting them. I should know.)

But not as a reward for good behavior. Not from the special ed teacher, who of all people has been trained (I thought) to come up with better methods to ensure good behavior.

And not, for crying out loud, for a kid with Down syndrome. Sophie’s pretty lithe at the moment, but I’d like to keep it that way, and sadly, she’s genetically programmed for plumpness.

Most of all, I was annoyed at the timing — that Sophie mentioned the M&M thing just days after the IEP meeting. A good reminder, I suppose, that an IEP is pretty much worth the paper it’s printed on.

I do love Sophie’s teacher, Ms. Y; she  has quite a way with words. When I mentioned the M&M thing in an email, she responded that “non-culinary” reward options would immediately be explored.

In fact, the special ed teacher reported yesterday, that will be written into the IEP.

Great.

Someone once told me that you’re not supposed to praise your kid too much.

I’m sure there’s some sort of psychology behind it, but I don’t buy it. I don’t think you can praise your kid enough. Not if you mean it, anyway. And if I’m wrong, and it screws them up, I’ll happily pay their therapy bills.

Last night, Sophie fell asleep early (too much excitement over a dinner date with Ms. X — she could barely keep her eyes open by the time the guest of honor arrived) and Annabelle stayed up late-ish, painting with a fancy set of oils my mom got her.

It was a rare quiet moment. I watched Annabelle from the side, so serious about her creation — choosing just the right shade of green, trying out different tools in her paint kit. I got up and hugged her from behind, smoothed her hair, whispered in her ear, “I love you so much, Annabelle Rose! You are the best kid ever.”

She turned her face up to look at me.

“Do you love Sophie as much as you love me?” she asked.

“I do,” I answered.

“Good,” she sighed, leaning back into my arms.

Sophie got a haircut Saturday.

Normally a haircut is not cause for bells and whistles (she needs frequent bang trims)  but this time I let the girl at Supercuts whack a few inches off the bottom. (We’d been waiting for well over an hour, I figured we might as well make it time well spent. As for the bang part — well, they’ll grow out. Sigh. Supercuts is not.)

Sophie was thrilled, not only because it means no more rat’s nest in the back (at least, so far it hasn’t) but because People Notice. I remember that feeling. In fact, I so craved it as a kid I wound up with several unfortunate hair dos (hair don’ts, rather), including the worst, the Dorothy Hamill.

Not the kind of attention you want to get, trust me.

So we’ve kept the hair pretty Plain Jane with this generation. Annabelle knows — because I learned the hard way — that her waves won’t work well in bangs. There will be no feathering (or attempts) for anyone, not as long as I have anything to say about it.

That’s okay. Sophie’s getting plenty of mileage out of her cut.

Last night we had dinner with my father, who of course didn’t initially notice Sophie’s hair (hard to see it past the Blackberry, you know?) so I motioned behind her head, mimicking scissors, and he made a great show of “noticing” and telling her how great she looked.

Sophie practically vibrated, she was so excited.

This morning we were a little late to school (again) so I walked Sophie to her classroom and she asked for help with the heavy door. I opened it and instead of begging for yet another hug, she raced in, announcing, “HEY EVERYONE! I GOT A HAIR CUT!”

I can’t wait til tonight, when she’ll tell me all about the reaction.

Sophie has a new habit. She likes to ask me what’s next.

It’s better than some of her past “tics” — telling strangers “You’re mean!” or screaming “Buy it!” in stores (my dear friend Robrt’s favorite) — but frankly, it’s wearing. Here’s how it goes:

“Mommy, what day is it?” Sophie will ask — before sun up, if allowed. The days are getting longer, so I’m sleeping less.

“It’s Thursday.”

“What’s happening today?”

“You have physical therapy with Dorcas.”

“What’s after that?”

“I’ll drop you off at school.”

“What’s after that?”

“Courtney will pick you up.”

“What’s after that?”

“You have a play date with Sarah.”

“What’s after that?”

“Daddy comes home.”

“What’s after that?”

“You’ll eat dinner.”

“What’s after that?”

“You’ll do your homework.”

“What’s after that?”

“I will come home and tuck you in.”

“What’s after that?”

“You’ll go to sleep.”

“What’s after that?”

Usually, on principle — and due to sheer exhaustion — I’ll cut her off after we’ve gone through an entire day. Let her, and Sophie will ask you “What’s after that” for a week’s worth of days. It makes me a little sad, this constant desire to know what’s next, this lack of ability to live in the moment. I know it’s just a developmental phase, but it’s made me focus on my own habit of thinking about what’s next instead of reveling in the here and now.

I even bought myself a bracelet at one of my favorite boutiques, Frances, that says, “Live in the present.” (It also makes me chuckle as it serves as a reminder that I really should be less materialistic — living should be enjoyed without presents, if you know what I mean.)

This morning I was forced out of the moment and into the future, as I endured Sophie’s annual IEP (Individualized Education Program) meeting. A group of us sat around a table at the school and went over her goals for the next year.

The adaptive physical education teacher wants Sophie to learn how to hop on one foot. The occupational therapist is working on the number 7 and the lowercase letter b. The speech therapist’s goal is for Sophie to use a sentence with an adjective correctly, 8 times out of 10. (This is just a small fraction of what was discussed, as you might imagine.)

We talked about how well Sophie’s reading, and how (frankly) poorly she’s doing at math. Apparently she brings reading books with her to math class, which was news to me; there will be a new goal in next year’s IEP, instructing her to leave the books behind and focus on the numbers. (I feel Sophie’s pain. The administrators, teachers and therapists never believe me when I try to tell them that Sophie’s challenge is not just Down syndrome — it’s ME. Yeah, she gets the reading from me, but the math, too. And the hopping.)

I think I sucked them dry for every minute of extra help I can get for Sophie — with as much of it as possible happening in the classroom — and was feeling fairly pleased (though wary as always, I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to demand that lunch room help every day actually be written into the IEP, something the principal hasn’t wanted to do in the past, since she’ll be legally bound to provide it) when the special ed teacher presented one more list of accomodations for me to approve.

Test-taking accomodations. I always figured Sophie wouldn’t have to take the statewide standardized tests — including the dreaded AIMS test — that Annabelle takes. She didn’t in kindergarten, anyway. Turns out, kindergarten was an exception. All kids must take standardized tests, and their scores all count.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off over my head. Now I get it. This is why public schools don’t want special needs kids. (Or English Language Learners either, for that matter. They’re included in this f-ed up situation, too.)

And in Arizona, thanks to an incompetent (and that’s a kind description) legislature and a superintendent of public instruction who spends more time, I hear, arranging jobs for his girlfriend(s) with the state than actually paying attention to — or caring about — what’s best for kids, it’s ALL ABOUT THE TEST.

“Oh, I get it now,” I said to the principal. “Well, look on the bright side. At least my other kid sends your averages up, not down.”

She quickly corrected me. She doesn’t care a bit about Sophie bringing down her average, the principal insisted. She simply feels sorry for kids like Sophie who are forced to take these tests.

Uh huh.

In any case, Sophie will be taking them. Yeah, she’ll get all kinds of “accomodations” — a quiet place, extra time, someone to explain things. But still. It’s hardly a level playing field.

The bell rang and the teacher left to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. The rest of us were quiet around the table. The adaptive PE teacher spoke up.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” she said. “You’ll really enjoy reading the test results when they come out and seeing how much better Sophie does than some of the typical kids.”

Is that really what will happen? We’ll have to wait and see. But I have to admit, that made my day.

For today, any way.