"I'm with the SWAT team"

I'm staying at my family's tonight with Catie and Annie while mom and dad get a night away... I was in a hurry leaving my place this morning and didn't grab any pjs and now its that time of night. I promise you, you won't find me sleeping in that dress I had on earlier... its time to be comfy. Unfortunately I had to think about where I would find something to wear... There are a lot of shapes and sizes in this house and my tummy only seemed to fit one size. dads. (no dad, you don't look prego, you just wear the right size tshirt) So I found myself digging toward the bottom of my dads tshirt drawer looking for a pj shirt and was quickly sent back to rockhurst ct in a matter of seconds. Saturday night was shower-for-church-in-the-morning night... not the ONLY time we were bathed during the week haha just one day you could count on. We'd climb out of the huge tub in mom and dads bathroom. The one surrounded by the orange and gold leaf design of wall paper all the way up to the ceiling and right under the window that looked down into the backyard of our dysfunctional neighbors. I've always been one for snooping and drama, even at a young age. :) Kerri just little with dimples on her cooling still making her 2 maybe? catie 4ish and me 6ish... we'd all shiver as we walked over to the stairs to look into the picture hanging on the wall across from the stairway. You could see the reflection of the tv so we'd check to make sure we hadn't missed that nights episode of "COPS." Family tradish to watch it saturday nights. That reflection in that picture was bomb... I watched my first episode of Americas Most Wanted and some of Top Gun through that frame. Anyway, once we realized we hadn't missed COPS but it was coming on soon it was a rush to get our jammies on and hair brushed through. I remember having cute jammies... Barbie nightgowns and this one with colorful fluffy animal things on it but for some reason it seems like we always ended up in dads navy SWAT shirts on saturday nights. Maybe it was a quick one hit stop for mom? Bath, towels, and a SWAT shirt all in the same location, maybe we asked to wear them? That I can't remember, I just remember wearing them and feeling proud! Hoping at 6 that someone would come to the door and see me in it and think that maybe I was on the SWAT team too. haha right. We'd go downstairs and watch COPS while our long hair (down to our butts) was soaking the back of our shirts and then it was off to bed. I can remember Catie changing out of her shirt a few times cause it was wet... must have been those early batten moments of ocd and behaviors and she couldn't stand it, or maybe she just didn't like the feeling anyway.. I didn't mind though, I loved having it on. Like I said, I thought I could maybe look like the oversized tshirt was mine personally. It also smelled like my dad.. like a clean dad. Not like he had just had gotten back from swat training but more like the smell of the hug you got from him before he left. I even took his shirts with me when I'd go to my grandparents or a cousins house. I got homesick so it was like a blankie I could wear to bed. Plus it looked cool. Psh, yeah, my dads on the swat team, no biggie. Man it was a big deal as a little girl!! It has always stayed a big deal to me but as I got older I wore my own tshirts and jammies to bed and then before you know it youre a teen and its not cool to wear your dads old tshirts cause you notice the deoderant stains and they were oversized and we all know it matters what you look like when you crawl into bed by yourself with your dog. like, totally! Then all of a sudden you're an adult and married and your husbands tshirts become your blankie. You wear his when he's gone or when you stay the night away from him somewhere and you love the smell of his shirts. I'm sure our little kids will wear their daddies shirts to bed too... They won't be SWAT shirts but band t's and mac logos are just as cool right?
Funny how needing something to sleep in can flash so much memory into your mind so quickly. I didn't find a swat shirt but I found a relay shirt and I'm just was proud and comforted to wear it to bed at 22. It represents the SWAT member that is now a tiny bit older and maybe not laying in a bush for hours at a time but running miles to raise funds and awareness for the battle he and his whole family are going through. It represents the dedication he has continually shown to take care of each one of us on top of everyone else in his world day after day.
Maybe if someone sees me in it they will think I'm a runner???!!! haha who and I kidding. Me making someone think I'm a runner is as likely as making someone think I'm with the SWAT team at 6 years old. Here's to looking up to your dad and hoping though!

oh and for the record, I'm wearing amy's pj bottoms. Yeah, I fit in them, its chill.