Ryan is becoming strongly opinionated about things these days. Particularly, the clothes he wears. I thought having a boy would relieve me of this challenge, but alas, it has not. On Wednesday, after 30 minutes of battling nap time, Ryan came downstairs, and with a sheepish grin, held up his favorite pair of jammies, requesting to put them on. Given the fact that they're his favorite, he's naturally worn them a horrendous number of times. Now couple that with the fact that he outgrew them 4 months ago, and you can imagine their current state! If I were smart, I would have hid these away in a tupperware container weeks ago where he couldn't find them. Although I suppose he would have just found another excuse to prolong the nap process.
Normally I would have sent Ryan right back up to his room, but by this point I was so desperate for him to sleep that I didn't care to fight it. "Fine!", I said. "Put on a pair of pajamas at 2:00 in the afternoon if that's what it's gonna take!" And so, off came his shirt and jeans and on went the jammies. And guess what? That was all it took! He marched right back to his room, and without another peep, fell fast asleep!
Near the end of his nap time, I headed outside to vacuum my car. Chloe stayed in until Ryan woke up, and then they both joined me outside, Ryan still sporting the jammies, of course. I had to giggle, especially at his toes, which hung out of the holes they'd both created in the feet of his jammies. As I vacuumed, the kids played on the sidewalk with some neighborhood friends, and across the street, 2 neighborhood moms gabbed to one another. As I'd every so often glance in Ryan's direction to make sure he was being watched by the older kids, it suddenly dawned on me that the 2 moms had probably seen Ryan, had probably noticed he was wearing jammies at 4:30 in the afternoon, that his jammies had holes in the toes, and that the toes were painted with red nail polish. For a moment a sense of embarrassment came over me. "How does the sight of my son reflect the kind of mother I am?", I thought. But just as quickly as the embarrassment fell upon me, it left me, and I realized I didn't care. At all. If those moms wanted to assume he'd been in his jammies all day long because I was too lazy to put him in clothes, so be it! Goodness knows it wouldn't have been the first time that's happened! And if they wanted to think I was a freak for allowing my son to have painted toe nails, well, they could do that too! The important thing in all of this is that it really doesn't matter what others think. I know I take care of my son, and I fulfill his needs. And sometimes fulfilling his needs means giving him some control. I hope those moms saw Ryan and chuckled because they could relate. But if they didn't, that's okay.
I will have you know that I put those blessed pajamas away today, never to be seen again, unless Ryan has a brother someday.
