Pink vs. Blue

Is this not the best thing you've seen? Ever?

By Katy England

My weirdo roots go deep. When I was young, I was into bugs in a big way. I’d dig up worms, play with salamanders and snakes, and frogs. If it creeped and crawled I liked it. And I had a unicorn collection. My favorite dress was one that was made up of rainbows – I would probably have worn it every single day if my mom had let me.

My dad encouraged my love of computers and technology. I have very fond memories of helping build a solar-powered hotdog cooker that focused sunlight against metal to cook the dogs and soldering solar-powered cars. To this day I enjoy video games and catch and release all non-bloodsucking bugs into the wild (except for those blasted carpet beetles – you suck and you know it! Enjoy toilet life.).

So, it wasn’t a huge deal when one of my daughters got into trains and trucks in a big way. I mean, there’s plenty that stuff – and Thomas’s marketers were savvy enough to throw in a few girl trains to match with the new millennium. When it comes to clothes, she loves things with stripes, my other daughter is a huge fan of blue, my son claims to like green and yellow, but never fails to ask for the pink bowl if it’s available for breakfast.

I’ve actually had to learn about large-scale construction equipment to keep up. And that’s really how it should be – a sharing of ideas. Here’s what I think is cool – oh, you like that? Awesome.

But there’s been many a line drawn in the sand over what is for girls and what is for boys – and most of it is silly. I’ve never met a person who, while growing up, never pulled at the air over their head while a big rig rolled by to get him to blast the horn. It’s practically universal.

So, my little daughter vacillates between liking bugs (it’s so CUTE!) and squishing them in a fit of rage and fear. I’m working on the whole, “They’re more scared of you than you are of them…” line. It’s a process. My son plays with my old My Little Ponies alongside his extensive collection of dinosaurs.

When one of my daughters developed a taste for lemon-zinger tea, my head was filled with thoughts of tea sets. I still have my porcelain tea set I got for Christmas growing up. It was a Big Deal. And the idea of being able to have tea parties filled me with giddy anticipation. And so I started cruising the internet for tea sets, but I wanted them to reflect some of her other interests. Like dinosaurs or trucks. But to my dismay, there were not many dinosaur-themed tea services. Which was both a surprise, and a bummer.

There were some leads – Deviant Art pieces, ghost images on Pinterest, but nothing I could buy. So I started skimming Etsy for tea sets and came across a goth-inspired tea service. It looked like any of the elegant porcelain sets, gilded with gold scrolling and trimmed in pink – with a gothic skull enameled where flowers would normally be. And then there were the magic words “Reques a Custom Order.”

So, I messaged her about the option for dinosaur skulls, trucks and train engines. Well, now a special order is in the works. I probably won’t end up getting it until they’re a couple years older. I like to stockpile presents in case of emergency, that way we’ll still have something.

I’ll probably be visiting that shop again for her collection of insect plates. In the meantime, I can’t wait to start planning a tea party.