On Wednesday, a sign appeared on the front door of Little Boy’s preschool, saying “Pajama Day, Friday February 24.” I somehow managed to retain this information in my mid-term memory so that on Friday morning, after taking off Little Boy’s pajamas and giving him a quick wake-up shower, I presented him with another pair of pajamas to put on.
“Today, you get to wear pajamas to school!” I announced in my isn’t-this-crazy-fun voice.
He looked bewildered. “No! No pajamas in school,” he said, wriggling out of the towel and collapsing defiantly on the bath mat.
“Little Boy, everyone will be wearing pajamas, all your friends!”
“No pajamas in school!” he declared, looking at me as if I lost my mind.
After 2 minutes of negotiation, I was able to get the pajama top over his head and his arms in the sleeves — a tricky process, when the other party is unwilling. I put him on my lap and pulled on his underwear and the bottoms. He insisted it was too cold outside to wear pajamas, that he couldn’t do “center” and “circle” in pajamas and finally pointed out that I wasn’t wearing pajamas. He found the whole thing to be ridiculous and I think he suspected he was going to do nothing but sleep at school.
(Ironically, he never wore pajamas in Ethiopia; children sleep in their regular clothes. I’ve heard of other adoptive parents having difficulties getting their kids into pajamas, but he took to the idea right away.)
The whole morning — over breakfast, in the car — he protested the fact that he was wearing pajamas: “Too many people not wearing pajamas!” (In Little Boy speak, “too many” means “a lot,” so I think he was trying to say that no one else at his school would be wearing pajamas. I think he thought I was setting him up for social failure.)
We arrived at preschool around 8:15. Before 9am, all of the older kids congregate in the Kindergarten room (so that kids from four classes can be supervised by two staff members). We dropped off his bag in his classroom then walked to the Kindergarten classroom. I could tell he was a little apprehensive about wearing pajamas, and was a little surprised that a 3 year old could be so self-conscious.
And then we entered the Kindergarten classroom, and Little Boy looked around to see 15 other kids in their pajamas! He was greeted by his teacher, who was also in her pajamas! A wide smile — probably the first one of the day — broke out across his face. He hugged me and gave me three big kisses on my cheek before running over to play with plastic dinosaurs with three of his pajama-clad friends.
In the afternoon during pick-up, he went through the drawn-out process of saying goodbye to his friends. It doesn’t happen everyday, but sometimes a kid from his classroom will give Little Boy a hug goodbye. Another kid sees that and wants to give Little Boy a hug, too. This ignites a firestorm of hugs from all the kids, who line up to give hugs. The last hug was from a little boy from Korea, who was the only child not wearing his pajamas (everyday, he wears a button-down shirt with a sweater vest — I think his parents aren’t into the casual look). As we walked out the door, Little Boy pointed to his friend and said with a hint of scoff, “He wearing no pajamas.”
