The Color Yellow

Charlotte loves the color yellow...

Believe me, the irony has not escaped me. As a child, I was afraid of the color yellow... Yes, I was afraid... of a color... Strange, I know.

You see, the color yellow reminded me of throwing up... So, whenever I saw the color yellow, I would begin to gag. I have distinct memories of sitting in the grocery cart with my eyes closed, asking my mom to tell me when we were out of the mustard aisle. To this day, I can't eat mustard...

And then there was the grilled cheese sandwich...

When I was about three, my parents took us to a Bob's Big Boy... It wasn't unusual for us to go out to restaurants, and Bob's Big Boy was one of our favorites, after all, it had a life-size statue of Bob in the entrance... We were always allowed to order our own meals, but on this occasion, my parents ordered for us... And they ordered grilled cheese... When it came, I took one look at it and saw its oozing, yellow insides and my stomach started to turn. Beg and plead as I might, my parents insisted that I eat at least two bites... No arguements... This was non-negotiable... And so I did... I ate two bites of a grilled cheese sandwich... and 25 years passed before I tried it again.

Over the years, my fear of the color yellow slowly faded to a dislike and then an apathy and then just a quirky memory. Every once in a while, the subject would come up at family dinners, and I would tease my sister for chasing me around the house with yellow crayons just to watch me scream.

So, I had to laugh the first time I saw Charlotte get excited about yellow. There was a yellow can of pizza sauce sitting on our kitchen table while we were having dinner one night. Charlotte was sitting in my lap when she started making lots of noises. When Charlotte is very interested in something, or in deep concentration, she stretches out her neck, sticks out her chin and makes chewing motions with her mouth... This evening her little mouth couldn't keep up with her excitement and her energy burst out in a flurry of quick jerks and movements from her arms and legs. She startled us at first, because she had never had this reaction before. We'd hide the can and she calmed down... We'd show it to her and she would go crazy...

After that evening, I began to pay attention... It wasn't long before I began to notice that when given the option to look at different colors, her eyes would always go to yellow. I took her to her grandparents' restaurant one night and showed her a whole shelf of yellow cans. She was mesmerized. When she would get fussy, I would just show her a can, and she would calm right down.

So I'm going to stock up on sauce. Then, when we have those days when the fussiness takes over and the whining gets almost unbearable, we won't have to turn any further than our kitchen pantry, and to the yellow cans on the shelves to calm down our little girl... at least for a neck-stretching, chin-sticking-out, fake-chewing moment or two!