I used to be the first to admit that I am happy to see my child grow up. Recently, I realized that I actually hate to see my one and only precious baby grow up into adolescences.

If you know my beautiful daughter, then you know that she is in love with the color yellow. She adores this shiny shade of pigments on the color wheel. At preschool, play dates, stores and even at restaurants, if she does not have the option of selecting the color yellow, she will throw a royal tantrum that would shake the very foundations of “The Matrix”.

Put it this way: her favorite dum-dums pop is a banana-split; her favorite fruit is a banana; her favorite planet is the Sun (yes, this is a fact).

Despite her deep and seemingly enduring adoration for the color yellow and two weeks before her fourth birthday, something broke this chain. When I asked her, “What’s your favorite color?”
She answered, “Mommy, I love green and red because it’s Christmas colors, and I love Christmas.” Panic struck down my back; I almost freaked out.

I should have rejoiced as green and red are much more available and optional for my daughter to choose and adore. However, it was a sign that my baby was definitely growing up. For the next two weeks, I went against the rising tide of change by drilling back into her brain that her favorite color is yellow. I would often tell her that “You love YELLOW my crazy girl!” For heaven’s sake, I already had her prom dress drawn out! It’s a really pretty bejeweled yellow cocktail dress, from which I already chosen her prom date along with his matching cummerbund (It’s really a beautiful sight). I know, I’m THE crazy girl…

Well, a couple of days before her birthday, we went to an ice cream shop with her friend and they both had vanilla ice cream with sprinkles. My daughter cried that her sprinkles were not all yellow. Unconsciously, I took it as a moment to lecture her to just toughen up and enjoy her ice cream (only because there are poor people in this world who do not know that ice cream exists), but my heart was filled with joy and I was happy to know that she is still clinging to her color yellow obsession. A mother should be able to hold on to some things from her baby’s childhood.

…The prom dress I picked out still looks like a possible future…