Colors of the wind

How did it end up that my girls, like millions of other little girls worldwide, are addicted to pink?

Now I realize that we parents start them out right away with pink outfits of every kind, but at the time, they are too little to do more than puke and pee on the clothing. They certainly aren't focusing on what color they're surrounded by.

Julia is 3 and by now it's completely ingrained. She loves pink shirts, pink pants, pink socks, pink shoes, pink dress-up clothes, pink toys, and, of course, her pink blankie. She'll generally wear other colors (thank god), but as soon as I wash her pink things, she wants to wear them again.

We put a pretty good effort into not having Allie be a girly girl, completely to no avail. We (and our families) bought her trucks and Matchbox cars and bats and balls, dinosaurs and golf clubs and lots of Legos, and she'd make castles out of the Legos for her dinosaurs. Nothing was mentioned about anything pink.

Then I'd tell her a story at night about a princess named Allie and this is how it would go:

Me: Once upon a time, there was a princess named Allie who lived in a magical castle. What color was the castle, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me: And the castle had a beautiful tower attached to it. What color was the tower, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me: And in the tower was Princess Allie's beautiful bedroom. What color was the door, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me (laughing): And inside, she had a beautiful bed with a huge canopy. What color was the bed, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me: One day, Princess Allie was playing in her room when she decided to go outside and take a ride on her magical horse. What color was the horse, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me: And what was the horsey's name, Allie?

Allie (long pause): Jack!

(Every animal was named Jack in Allie's world at this age, including Jack the First, a fish, and Jack the Second, another fish. Both quickly died and went to heaven.)

Me: So Princess Allie took a wonderful ride on Jack the pink horse through the beautiful countryside filled with amazing trees. What color were the trees, Allie?

Allie: Pink!

Me: And there were also wonderful smelling flowers everywhere. What color were the flowers, Allie?

Allie: Pink------and purple!

Me: So Princess Allie had a wonderful ride through the forest and when she got tired, she went back to the pink castle for a snack. What did she have for her snack, Allie?

Allie (another long pause): Cookies!

Me: And what kind of cookies were they, Allie?

Allie: Pink cookies!

Me: And with the cookies, Princess Allie had a refreshing drink. What did she have to drink, Allie?

Allie: Pink milk! (At the time, we mixed Allie's milk with strawberry milk powder so she'd drink more, so her milk often was really pink.)

Me: So Princess Allie finished eating her pink cookies and drinking her pink milk and she went to the pink tower and climbed the stairs to the pink door and opened it to find her pink room and her pink bed and she laid down and took a wonderful nap. Time to go to sleep now, Princess Allie.

The amazing part is that Julia was a baby when we started doing that story, so she didn't hear it with all of Allie's pink answers. Three years later, after a long gap from me doing it with Allie at all, I started doing it with Julia, when Allie was in her own room.

All of Julia's answers were also, Pink! Maybe it's genetic?