I don’t know what it is, but I’ve sat down several times this week to write, and I end up trashing it all.  God’s kinda messing with me this week (in the good but painful way), and I guess I’m just having trouble digesting it all for now.  So instead of trying to write something super inspiring, I bring you the following real-life moment.

Today was Pajama Day at Ryder’s preschool.

To most kids, this is one of the greatest days of the year.  They get to hang out with their buddies and their teachers IN THEIR PJ’S.  At school.

This is Ryder’s worst nightmare.

We’ve always been a get-up-and-go kind of family.  When he was born, we’d only been living in IL for a few weeks, hardly knew a soul, and we were headed straight into our first “real winter”.  It was my solemn vow (to myself, of course) to get out of the house at least once every day.  I didn’t care if I went to the post office or the grocery store, walked laps around the mall, or went to the doctor.  All I knew was that I refused to be locked up in my house.  All winter.  By myself.  With a brand new baby.

Fast forward more than four years, and we’ve pretty much kept to that vow.  Except, you might say I’ve created a monster.

There are days when I’d love to stay in my jams and never see the sun, unless it’s featured in one of the mirad of movies we play that day.  But if we’re still home around 9:30, we all start to get a little stir crazy.  At this point, we usually find an excuse to go somewhere… Target, the mall, or even just for a drive.

In addition, Ryder can now confidently and competently dress himself from head to toe (and even manages to put together coordinating outfits most of the time).  And while this is awesome, it’s also really not awesome.  You see, he has also been an early bird his whole life.  Luckily for him, I’m an early bird too.  BUT he tends to go through phases where he wakes up even earlier (and more chipper) than normal (5:ooam is still night time… even for me).  And for the last couple of weeks, my darling firstborn has been fully dressed (including shoes/socks, hat and backpack) before 6:30 in the morning.  Couple all this with his obsession for belt buckles (because if you’ve seen him in real-life you know he can’t go anywhere without his carabiners, light saber, and other implement he can hang from his person) and you may begin to realize that I had to think long and hard about a way to break it to him that he might be <GASP!> wearing his pajamas in public.

The conversation started a couple days ago… and went pretty much how I expected:

Me: He Ryder, I have a surprise for you!

Ryder: What?  Me: Thursday is Pajama Day at school, and…

Ryder: (interrupting, hands flailing, head shaking) No, no, no, no, no!

Me: What do you mean, “no”?  All your friends, and even your teachers will be wearing their pj’s, and you don’t wanna be the only one in jeans, do you?

Ryder: Mom… you can’t wear pee-jayees-uh to schoooool-uh!  <said as if I didn’t understand English… lol>

I tried several more times over the next few hours to bring it up.  Our next door neighbor even tried to convince him that it would be totally awesome, and he wasn’t buying it.

So this morning, he came bounding into my bathroom as I was blowdrying my hair… already dressed… in jeans.  Long story short, I told him I wouldn’t force him to wear his pajamas, but that I didn’t want him to feel left out when he got to school and be sad that he was the only one dressed differently.  In the end, he agreed, and picked out his new robot pj’s.

When we got there (even though he didn’t say so), he seemed relieved to see that I was in fact telling the truth.  Everyone, including his teachers, was wearing pj’s and sporting their favorite buddies (his term for stuffed animals).  There were blankets and pillows spread on the floor, and they made pancakes for snack time.  I’m sure it was super-fun, but I’m getting a preview of his teenage years already because every day when I pick him up from school and ask how it went, or what they did, I get one-word answers.  <sigh>

Here’s Ryder with his sweetheart, Maddy 🙂

And in case you’re wondering… he changed back into “real clothes” the moment we got home from school.