Sweat Pants, T-Shirts Beat PJ’s Any Day

Mike was getting ready for a slumber party. He was excited because he had never stayed overnight at a friend’s house before. I was helping him pack his gear.
“Why don’t you take these Chinese pajamas”? I asked, holding up the freshly laundered and folded pair.
“No I don’t want to.”
“How about the dinosaur ones? They should still fit,” I said digging in the drawer.
“Mom, Do you know where those cut-off sweat pants and my Turtle T-shirt are? I’ll take them to sleep in,” my son responded.
“Don’t you think you should take pajamas?” I asked
“Why?”
Why, indeed, I said to myself. He never wears pajamas at home; neither do his brothers. They sleep in T-shirts and shorts in warm weather and sweat suits in the winter.
If most households are like ours, and I imagine a lot of them are, the pj industry for the size 6 and above set must be in a recession. But again, maybe it’s not. There are still mothers like me who keep tradition and buy pj’s even though they are never or seldom worn.
Sometimes, my guys will put on their pajamas after their evening showers. The boys look so nice and fresh and neat. But most of the time, they scrounge around looking for something well-worn and comfortable to sleep in.
I guess this is OK as long as they don’t reach for the dirty clothes they just took off.
I read a parenting article in which an expert on children suggested that parents let children wear the same knit clothing to school as they wore to bed the night before.
If we did that, we would have to find something else to argue about in the morning.
My guys can’t understand why I won’t let them wear the clothes they’ve worn continuously since school let out on Friday to church on Sunday. They also don’t understand why they have to take showers when they just took them three days earlier.
I usually win this argument when I point out that the tomato sauce stains on their shirts Sunday morning came from the pizza we had Friday night.
My guys like to stay up until they drop or I start having a fit because they are still awake (which ever happens first). They fop into bed after performing minimalistic hygiene rituals in the bathroom.
Their sense of style does save money, since I never feel tempted to purchase a cute ensemble displayed in a store window.
Mike and John’s favorite tops for playing and sleeping are the sweat shirts I bought for them last fall from a vendor a the loading dock of the ferry for the Statue of Liberty in New York City. It was the end of the day, and he was slashing prices.
Pete alternates wearing his two elves sweat shirts, which were made to promote my book, “I Can’t Sleep With Those Elves Watching Me.”
Matt likes his purple or black sweat shirt.
They all wear sweat pants with holes in the knees. I’ve been gradually cutting off the sweat pants to make shorts, but not without protest. They argue that if I cut off too many sweat pants, they won’t have anything to wear after school on cool days.
I guess the boys like to keep their ankles warm, even if their knees can feel the evening breezes.
When my older kids were little, I was embarrassed if they were seen dressed like that. My standards have lowered – dramatically. Now, it doesn’t really matter what they wear when they’re asleep or awake I always tell them, “You are cute and that’s what is important.”
April 23, 1991