Okay, confession: One of my never-back-down non-negotiables for my children is getting dressed in the morning. They do not stay in their pajamas any longer than an hour or so after they get up, no matter how they feel about it.
How they feel about it is usually pretty negative, but I refuse to surrender to pajama-clad children for the duration of the day. It depresses me. Also, it makes it harder to get out the house on time if I'm trying to get them dressed right before we go anywhere.
So every morning, we do the dressing stand-off, which I always win because I am the adult. So there.
It's one of my Things, okay? We all have them as parents. Getting everyone dressed is important to me, no matter how taxing it may be.
The resistance that I meet every day when it comes to donning clothing, however, made me think that Cubby would be so excited about Pajama Day at preschool. You get to wear your pajamas to school, Cubby! Won't that be FUN!
No, said Cubby. I wear clothes to school, not pajamas. That's silly.
Uh.
I mean, obviously I agree and I'm the reason he's so rigid about this, but I still tried really hard to make it seem fun and convince him that he should join in the pajama party. I suggested he wear his beloved digger pajamas, sent by an actual Fun Mom (my mom). He agreed to this. Last night.
But this morning when I reminded him that he didn't have to get dressed this morning because it was FUN PAJAMA DAY at school (!!!!!), he once again flatly refused to wear his pajamas to school. This time he explained that not only was it silly to wear pajamas to school, he needed to wear his clothes because if there were to be a thunderstorm--which was orginally in our forecast and which I mentioned to him yesterday--he would need his clothes to be safe.
Oh. Okay. Guess we'll go get dressed then.
So we did. There were a couple of other kids who also opted out of pajamas, so at least he wasn't the only one.
And God knows, I can't claim I don't know where he gets it.
The deer-in-the-headlights moment when you realize, "He's right, of course, because that's what I always tell him. And I don't want to even open the can of worms by saying there can be special exceptions."
ReplyDeleteI haz your feelz.
Cubby knows "silly" when he sees it! Mary in MN
ReplyDeleteyou are right never to back down on the getting dressed thing, for a variety of reasons ranging from "life skills" to "the disintegration of american society".
ReplyDeletea child can, i suppose, develop a sense of frivolity and fun later.
if he chooses.
or not.