"What are you sewing, Marek?" I ask as I tie the knot.
"My pajamas have another hole."
I know what pajamas he is talking about. These pajama pants are made of plaid, red flannel and he outgrew them in length a year or two ago. And they have a HUGE hole in the knee. I have refused several times to sew them up for Marek, prompting him to take up a needle and thread on his own - several times now. In my opinion if they are to be salvaged, the best scenario would be to chop them off and create pajama shorts for the summer. Geoff just thinks they should be tossed. Though Geoff has his own pair of red flannel, plaid pajama pants that have seen better days...
I must admit I also have my version of these pajama pants. You've probably heard me describe them before with quantities of love. My pants are blue sweat pants that were purchased for my Dad in 1983 or so when my Mom bought our whole family colorful matching sweatsuits from the Spiegel catalog. My orange assemble was outgrown long ago, but the sweat pants I inherited from Dad came worn in from decades of laundering. They are like encasing myself in a downy second skin and I will wear them despite the hole in the butt - and the fact that they are UGLY.
I guess we probably all have our version of the pajama pant.
I have always liked clothes. I know this comes as a surprise to those who did not know the former me - the one prior to children that had lots of time to read fashion magazines and sew and shop for vintage. Though I dabbled with a fashion design major for two semesters in college, I have never been the high fashion type. I've never worn makeup, rarely received a professional haircut, and scoffed always at high heels. I was the type to experiment with Rit dye on long underwear and Flashdance-like T-shirts and wear these lovely assembles around campus in bare feet from dance class to calculus class. My red dyed outfit was captured forever on video in 1988, so I know exactly how great I looked.
When I became pregnant, along with my dreams of a midwife led, water birth was my dream of forever dressing my kids as I defined "cute." Little did I know this was just as unrealistic as that water birth. I thought it would be like the summer I spent every spare moment sewing clothes for my Cabbage Patch Kid, Muriel. (Yes, I was a little old to be playing with dolls, but boy, did I learn to sew on Muriel!) Muriel sat so still and was so tolerant of my clothing choices based on the weather and activity, and she always looked so well outfitted. Thank goodness I had Muriel.
Because my real children have long ago asserted their own identities with fashion. The other night as we toasted marshmallows, I was examining their outfits - little ragamuffins.
Marek - he is all about the feel. He likes pajamas - day or night. I have stacks of clothes stored in the basement that Marek has rejected but that Oscar will hopefully one day enjoy. Here he is in a pajama shirt with a newly discovered pair of jeans from storage.
Oscar - he is the least choosy. Oscar favors Walmart-like clothes that advertise various movies or superheros. I often wonder why he likes Spiderman when he has never read or even watched Spiderman. What can I say, my standards lowered for the second child, especially when I saw how happy he became from colorful polyester. Here he is in his favorite Spiderman "muscle" shirt. Which is really from a set of pajamas rejected by Marek.
Matilda - my two-year-old has already decided she knows better than I about how she should outfit her little body. No cute little dresses for Tildy. She is fond of the knit separates - and the more separate the better it seems. Look at her here.
A long time ago one of my cousins had the unfortunate experience of living in an apartment building that burned down from another tenant. From this I learned first, to always have insurance even as a renter, second, to skip the apartment and buy a house, and third, to appreciate my own clothes. Not only did my cousin and his wife miss their photos, but they missed having their own clothes. Their own comfortable pair of pajama pants.
I guess our clothes become an extension of who we are announcing to the world what we do for a living, how much money we make, our stereotypical click of how we fit into the shape of things. Our clothes reflect how we see ourselves.
Sometimes I wish I could place signs on my kids - especially for those with no kids or those too old to remember what it is like:
My child dressed him/herself this morning.And even if they really didn't, wouldn't a sign like this be a great way to remove all responsibility?
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