by Patti
I was getting ready for work and S wandered into the bathroom to ask me a question. I noticed she was still wearing her pajama pants and urged her to hurry up and get dressed. Her reponse? “I am dressed.”
“Honey, you’re wearing pajamas.”
“And?”
“And… they are PAJAMAS.”
“And… they are PAJAMAS.”
“AND?”
These pajamas were festooned with flying monkeys.
“Honey. You cannot wear pajamas to school.”
“Why not? They are pants, aren’t they?”
She had a point.
So I let her go to school in flying monkey pajama pants.
It reminded me of the days I was all about “expressing myself”, and I wore a Glad trash bag to high school. I cut out a head hole and arm holes and slipped it over my 15-year old rebellious body, then I cinched it at the waist with a studded belt. My mother didn’t say a word. I’m sure she was DYING to, but she wisely zipped it. And off I went, proudly wearing a black garbage bag dress. Sure, I got lots of stares and snickers, but then again – wasn’t that what I was aiming for?
I admire that girl; the one who didn’t care about what other people thought, the one that wasn’t afraid to stand out, the one who was a free and bubbling spirit. Life with all its rules has tempered that a bit, and now that I think about it, it makes me kind of sad. I see S headed down that same path of jubilant self-expression, and though my job is to guide her and discipline her and set boundaries to keep her safe and sane, nowhere in my job description does it give me any right to stop her from being who she is.
And who she is just keeps getting better and better.
