pajama day

Okay, I confess. My kids do not, for the most part, have cute matchy-matchy pajama sets. They sleep in sweatpants, hand-me-down tee shirts from my brother, cotton shorts that they've pretty much outgrown but are unwilling to part with. This is not normally a big deal, except for pajama day.

This week and next week grades 3-6 at their school are taking the NECAP test. No, I have no idea what NECAP stands for, and I'm too lazy to look it up. It's one of the standardized tests, and while Big Brother regards it as I always did - a bit of a break from the everyday - a lot of kids get pretty stressed about it. So the school has "spirit weeks," with a different theme for every day. So far they've had twin day, school colors day, Hawaiian day, and now pajama day.

So Little Brother comes downstairs this morning, has his breakfast, and starts heading for his playroom. I remind him that he needs to get dressed.
"It's pajama day," he tells me.
I explain that doesn't actually mean you can just wear whatever you wore to bed last night, and he goes upstairs to put on some clean pajamas.
He comes down a few minutes later wearing something of the outgrown-clothes-they-don't-want-to-get-rid-of variety. It's a tee shirt he painted with fabric paint and a pair of red shorts. The shirt shows about two inches of belly, and the shorts are essentially Daisy Dukes. He is flabbergasted that I won't let him wear this to school.
"But it's pajama day!"
I send him up to try again. This time he comes down in one of the few matchy-matchy sets he does have: a camouflage-patterned long-sleeve thermal shirt and pants. It's supposed to be 85 degrees today. Now he's really getting mad.

I have to say here I wasn't as patient as I ought to have been. My excuse is that I got about four hours of sleep last night, one in the chair in Baby Sister's room, the rest on the couch with her curled up on me. Fricking teething.

Anyway, he finally ended up in cut-off sweatpants (because he loves them very much and they cannot be thrown away when the knees go) and his tie-dyed tee shirt he got in Lake George. Big Brother, thankfully, found something acceptable without incident.

I am so looking forward to naptime today.