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DUH, Mom

I have a daughter. She got married a few months ago (7 months to the day), and her color of choice for the flowers and decor was purple. It was beautiful and elegant, yet simple - a reflection of the bride herself.

In general, when you ask people what their favorite color is, they give you a one-word answer; and that's the end of it. They don't have a story to go with it. They simply like the color for reasons they may or may not know. Ami's favorite color has long been purple. Why? Who knows. She just likes it. I'm not sure if there's a cause and effect here, but her love affair with the color purple began in the spring of 1986.

I was pregnant with her little brother at the time. She had turned two in December. I'm not sure how much her little mind understood about the growing bulge in my mid-section, but at the time, she was the center of her daddy's and my universe, so all was well. Ami accompanied me to my monthly doctor visits, invited by the doctor, to listen to the baby's heartbeat. I'm sure she had no clue what she was listening to, but it was great fun to wear the doctor's stethoscope. There was, however, something even more exciting than that - it was on the way to the doctor's office - a purple house. A truly purple house. Ami never missed it. Somehow she always knew when it was coming up, and as soon as it reached her line of vision, she would begin to exclaim, "Look, Mommy! It's the purple house! Mommy! Look! It's the purple house!"
After Nathan was born in June, our regular doctor visits stopped. We slowly adjusted to being a family of four, and as all mothers with young children are, I was sleep-deprived. I would be up throughout the night with the baby, and since Ami no longer napped during the day, neither did I.

I got desperate and implemented "rest time." After laying Nathan down for his afternoon nap, Ami took a stack of books into our bedroom. I passed out on the sofa for however few moments of reprieve I could. On one particular afternoon, Nathan fell asleep, Ami climbed into bed with a pile of books spread around her, and I, near blind with exhaustion, stumbled into the living room. That's when I saw it. Someone had taken a crayon - a purple crayon - and covered the sofa with their own personal version of artistic expression. This wasn't a first offense by any means. The artist in question had used various walls and other pieces of furniture throughout the house as canvas. It was, however, the last straw in my sanity bucket. I was furious. How many times do you have to tell a two and a half-year-old that you only draw on paper?!
There was no hope for napping or even resting now. I stormed into the bedroom, red-faced with steam coming out my ears.
"Come here! Right now!" I told my, unsuspecting, daughter. Then I turned and marched back to the living room. When I reached the sofa, I turned to her. Pointing to the grafitti, I bellowed, "WHAT IS THIS?!"
She looked at me as only a child in their "terrible twos" or teen years (years which are uncannily similar) can look at a parent - incredulous that the one who gave them birth is actually an idiot, and said with near disdain, "purple." It was, I think, the original, "DUH, Mom."

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