Do your kids spend an inordinate amount of time in their pyjamas? Maybe it’s because it’s winter, but my kids are basically coming home from school on Friday, putting on pyjamas, and not changing back into “real clothes” until Monday morning. They’ll get showers and put on clean pyjamas instead of clothes. When it’s not raining, they’ll put on their winter coats and boots and play outside… In their pyjamas.
The other day, Master Five went too far. He was sitting at the kitchen bench, eating his morning cereal, when I spied a telltale flash of pale blue flanellette printed with polar bears peeping from beneath his school uniform collar. Yes, he was wearing his pyjama shirt under his uniform shirt.
“Dude, you can’t wear pyjamas to school,” I informed him.
He gazed serenely back at me. “I’m not wearing pyjamas,” he said.
“I can see your pyjama top under your school shirt,” I pointed out.
Again with that calm, unruffled stare. “Yep,” he replied. “But it’s not pyjamas. It’s just one pyjama. It doesn’t count because I’m not wearing the pants.”
So the difference between a singular and a plural are not lost on the son of an editor. Well played, kid.
I’m already having the fight about onesies. I totally understand why they want one, because they are so comfortable. But I can barely get them out of their pyjamas, imagine if they had a onesie! I mean, they would look cute wearing this, but that would be a battle that I would definitely lose. I can just about accept them wearing a pyjama top under their uniform, but turning up to school in onesie is a big no-no.
The day pyjamas become socially acceptable as daywear will be the day my children rejoice. Or perhaps their schools can be persuaded to reissue winter uniforms in flannellette instead of whatever dreadful allegedly hard-wearing, impossible to stain-treat material they currently come in? (The issue of school uniform fabric is an entirely different column, and one I’m not sure I can write without a fortifying glass of wine.)
Meanwhile, I might just wear my pyjama top under my work shirt today… Because, you know, it doesn’t count as pyjamas if you’re only wearing one piece of a set.
Katherine Granich
