Hello Kitty is cool; Barbie, not so much

My son has never had a problem with pink. He happily uses the pink Kool-aid cup. He likes pink cars and other toys.

When asked to go pick out a dish for a meal, he irritates his sisters by getting one of their Hello Kitty plates. Hello Kitty is cool in his book.

The surest way to anger him, I have seen, is to attempt to make him use a Barbie plate. We have a variety of Barbie dishes and he hates them all. "Disney Princesses" does nothing for him either. He has a Dora the Explorer plate that he enjoys using, but Dora has companions like Boots and Backpack along for the ride.

Today he shocked a store manager when he picked out a pink balloon with a pink string. She asked, "Are you SURE you want a pink balloon?" I told her about Hello Kitty love and Barbie hate and the lady seemed to calm down a bit. I think she would have understood more had she heard him tell me as we headed back over to the pharmacy that...

"My pink balloon with the pink string will go with my pink medicine."

(He was just prescribed amoxicillin for strep throat. Oh the joy...)