I don’t know what kind of parent this makes me, but the other day I bribed Georgia with footie pajamas so I could be on a conference call with a client of mine.

“I need to be on a call to Melinda, it’s a very important call and I won’t be able to talk to you or play with you. What can you do while I’m listening in to this call? Play with your new paper dolls and look through Bow Wow Bugs a Bug?” I suggested, futilely.

Shrieking with joy, “EEEEEEEE! Watch Wizard of Oz!!!”

“OK, but I won’t be able to hold your hand during the scary parts.”

“It’s OK, Mommy, now I’m four!”

And everything was going fine, but she’s watched the wonderful wizard several times now, and she started to get a little bored. “Mommee! The Tin Man says, “Oyyyl can!” Isn’t that funny?”

Uh oh, I still had 20 minutes to go on my call. I put down the phone, and quickly made a bargain with her. She needed some PJs, so I thought I’d capitalize on that. “G, I still need 20 minutes of you being very, very patient. If you can do that for me we’ll go buy some footie pajamas!”

Her eyes got wide, she smiled. Georgia loves footie pajamas. Polyester fleece, super soft, in any variation of pink, she could live in footie pajamas. So I got my 20 minutes, and when I hung up she asked, “When can we go get my footie pajamas?”

We usually go to the consignment store, but it can be such a disappointment when looking for something specific. And I’d love to say I considered Hanna Andersson, but their fair-trade, organic long johns don’t have feet, and I can’t justify $38 right now. So we headed to the mall (oof), and found some very soft, fleece, pink PJs with feet. When we got them home I noticed the tag that said the PJs were flame resistant.

It’s something I rarely confront, since we get most of her clothes as hand-me-downs, but I started to worry about just WHAT makes pajamas flame resistant? Are flame resistant PJs going to poison my daughter or should I be more concerned that she might play with matches, or back into a fire or candle, or otherwise encounter a small flame?

Even with some reasurring research, what I found made me wary. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, children's sleepwear must be flame resistant and self-extinguishing. By what means a manufacturer can achieve this end is up to them. They can make the sleepwear tight fitting, or use material that is inherently flame resistant, or treat the fabric to be flame resistant. But it doesn’t say on the label which option they’ve used. And there’s some controversy over what chemicals make fabric flame resistant. Given that such a gigantic industry can hardly be well regulated, and that America’s favorite low-price manufacturer, China, is responsible for some pretty icky exports, including dangerous levels of formaldehyde in kids’s clothes, I don’t doubt that there’s cause for concern.

To ease my mind, I’m counting on the multiple washings the hand-me-downs have had, and the sad fact that Georgia’s new PJs itch her mercilessly, due to some very scratchy embroidery holding some saccharine-sweet bear decoration in place. She can’t wear her new footies, poor girl, and I’ll have to take them back. Maybe now I have time to find some consignment store replacements so I don’t have to think of her little body absorbing worrisome chemicals designed to save her life.