Why Can’t I Wear A Sleeping Bag?

Getting really drunk and having a snow day off at home with your kids have a lot in common. It’s really fun when it starts but it can leave you wiped out with a horrible headache. My kids are usually capable, fairly independent people, but when it comes to putting on snow clothes they become 2 crying toddlers. Nothing fits right, they can’t find anything, and they certainly can’t put it all on themselves. Inevitably, no less than 5 minutes after they get outside, one or both of them trudges back into the house with some type of issue. Common examples heard at my house over the last couple of days are:

“She hit me with a hard snowball, not a soft snowball!”

Man up.

“This hat won’t fit over the oversize bow in my hair and I am not going out without the bow.”

WTF?

“Can you come out and play?”

No.

“Why don’t you ever do anything fun with us?”

Really?

“Can you make hot chocolate?”

Again?

“Can we just have marshmallows?

Fine.

“There’s dog poop on my gloves.”

No really, WTF???

I’m not really an outdoorsy person. I’m good for about a half and hour and then I want to go back inside. Inside my house there is a warm fire. There is cold wine. And there is a puzzle. I’m convinced that inside my 39-year-old body is an 85-year-old grumpy old woman who wants to sit inside her house with her dogs on her lap. Or maybe in a previous life I was in a mental institution, and I was the one who they sat in the sunny spot near the window with a puzzle. Either way I am convinced my spirit animal is either a sloth or a hermit crab. Both are slow and don’t like to move too fast. But the hermit crab is my true soul mate because he gets to live at the beach and can crawl inside his shell and disappear when he wants to shut off the world.  This is why those initial hours of a storm, the time when the news tells you it is a state of emergency and you need to stay inside, make me do a little happy dance. My family is all nestled in. We are warm and cozy and all plans have to be cancelled. My body and mind often feel like they are running on low battery mode and these type of events are the perfect time to shut down and recharge. Introverts unite!

The best part about a snow storm is the comfy clothes. Name one female you know who doesn’t sing Hallelujah at the end of the day when the bra comes off and the lounge clothes go on. But comfy and cozy doesn’t have to mean you have to look homeless and haggard. Here are some of my favorite pieces to make staying in just us cute as a night out, complete with a matching coffee cup. If anyone makes fun of you for being in your pajamas all day just tell them to get their own damn hot cocoa. Then go make yourself a cup. Whether or not you have Bailey’s in it is entirely up to you.

 

 

 

*Insider Tip – Re-purpose and Reuse.

Even as adults we tend to stick to the rules we had as a child. The other night my daughter wanted to sleep in her sweater. She begged, she pleaded. She told me how soft and cozy it was. I told her she couldn’t, that we don’t do that. “Why?” she asked? Good question. Not that I am suggesting we do it every night, but if something is extra cozy who says it can’t be pajamas? I have a gorgeously soft cashmere sweater that I snagged a hole in last year. While it’s not really suitable to use out of the house, there is no need to throw it away. On chilly nights it is the perfect layer over a tank. There really is no rule that says it can’t become my pajamas. So the next time you clean out your drawers, before you toss that tissue thin t-shirt that cost you way too much money, feels great but clings to you in ways you don’t want to show in public, consider repurposing it for it’s next life.  Regardless of how a store sells something to you, once you purchase that item it belongs to you. You can wear it however and whenever you want, and no one can tell you no. Put that in the plus one column for being a grownup.