I think about strange things when I'm driving. I have about twenty-seven in the minutes to work and then another twenty-seven minutes on the way home from work. Sometimes BigBrother is in the backseat, having just picked him up from the babysitter's house. Sometimes it's just me and the road. Often times, to save on gas since the Jeep is a guzzler, I'm in the Mustang. I love the Mustang. It's green. I was thinking about the color green the other day when I started thinking about colors in general.
I colored a lot as a kid. I loved coloring. Grandma, who I spent day time with while Mom was in college and then at work, would color with me. For hours. Once I colored her with Crayola markers. I traced the lines the socks left in her ankle. I gave her pretty red blush. I even drew brown freckles because I wanted freckles and, dang it, if I was creating things, my masterpiece was going to have freckles. Now, Grandma was asleep while I drew all over her. When she woke up, I didn't tell her what I'd done, but I giggled. If you have or know a child, you know that giggling upon waking up from a nap is a bad, bad sign. Needless to say, Grandma walked into the bathroom and the yell is something I will forever remember both with glee and fear. Thankfully they were washable Crayola markers.
Now, whilst coloring as a child, whether I was spending time making the perfect self-portrait for Mom or attempting to make Barbie look even more beautiful on the page than she was in doll form, skin color was an issue. I'd try various colors on the side of the page: beige, "flesh" and peach were always attempted and, really, they all looked hideous. Is your skin peach? Mine isn't. I would have done better leaving it blank to match my skin tone.
And so, it's weird that I was thinking about this topic the other day and Blogging Baby presented this article today, which delighted me to no end. In short, Crayola, bless their hearts, has created "Multicultural (washable) Markers." Hallafreakinglujah! I'm sure they aren't a dead on match for every skin tone; we all vary so much. Even within my family; my dad has a reddish undertone, Mom is paler than me, somehow and Matt has a more yellowish undertone. J? He's blindingly white and, mix the two of us together, you get a pretty pale Baby BigBrother. Munchkin is a beautiful shade of medium coccoa that somehow miraculously closely matches that of her older brothers. Lincoln was very dark, like Hershey's special dark. His eyes matched. I loved that about him.
Anyway, no, not a perfect match for everyone but, for pity's sake, it's about time someone acknowledged that basically no one is the color "flesh." And certainly not peach. BigBrother eats a lot of peaches and, really, I don't think I've ever seen someone THAT color. I'm buying both BigBrother and Munchkin a pack. The Munchkin will get hers along with a very special book (which I'll review over here when it gets in) when we visit in August. BigBrother won't be able to use his for awhile but… I feel a coloring fest coming on at our house!