The Pajama King

If you’ve been a follower of my blog for a while you have probably wondered if I buy my child clothes.  You know, real clothes.  Clothes other than pajamas.

pjscollageIn a good 75 percent of my pictures (and I take a lot of pictures) my child is wearing his pajamas.

I swear I buy him clothes.  I probably buy him too many clothes (especially considering the fact that he hardly wears them).

This child is not a fan of clothes.  He can’t really tell us why but I have hypothesized many reasons.  Waistbands feel too tight and fabric feels too scratchy being the biggest ones.

Every day he’ll get dressed for school or to do errands with little complaint (sometimes there’s complaints, but never too long-lived).  But the second he returns home he is back in his pajamas.  I truly mean the second he walks through the door.  He starts ripping the clothes off as he’s walking so there is often a trail of socks and underwear from the front door to the laundry room.  He is often in his pajamas before I have even put away the keys and my purse.  No joke.

And then once he is in his pajamas, don’t even think about asking him to change back to clothes.  My husband is quite often the recipient of texts that read, “Can you grab coffee on your way home?  Brian is in his pajamas”.  “Brian is in his pajamas” is code for “We aren’t leaving this house again until tomorrow”.

I don’t really blame him.  There is nothing like that feeling after a long day of taking off your clothes and slipping into your soft, worn-in pajamas.

Plus, I can’t complain.  This has been a long journey.

Back in the day, when he was first diagnosed, it was a fight just to get him to wear clothes.  He was naked at all times at our house, no matter who was there.  I would wrestle him into clothes before we had to leave the house but forget the socks and shoes.  Those just weren’t happening.

Slowly he conformed to society and would no longer fight to get dressed to go out but at home he was still naked.

Then we graduated to the rule that he had to wear underwear at all times.  No more naked Brian butts.

And finally, only just a year or so ago, he graduated to wearing pajamas at home.

See, with autism comes this little thing called sensory processing disorder.

It makes navigating the world really tricky.

Sometimes Brian’s nerves send the wrong messages to his brain- telling him that things feel too tight, too scratchy, too annoying.  Things sound too loud.  Foods smell too strongly, taste too sour, and don’t even get me started on the texture.

But as Brian has grown and healed with therapies and sensory diets he becomes more and more regulated.  Sometimes it’s hard to notice from day to day.  But when you remember the days of the streaking child, you realize just how far he has come.

Maybe, some day, we’ll graduate to real clothes at home…maybe.

 

SensoryBlogHop

This post is part of a Sensory Processing blog hop organized by the wonderful The Sensory Spectrum.  Please click the following link to read all of the other great posts by fantastic bloggers!  

Heather Nelson

About Heather Nelson

Heather resides in Rockland where she is busy juggling life as a newlywed, a mom to two boys (one of which who has autism), a part time job in direct sales, and a full-time job as a pediatric occupational therapy assistant. She has a love for live music, karaoke, and cheering on the underdogs.