A few days ago, Keats took a series of photographs of me knitting with Silas in my lap. I do believe that I will always treasure these. This time with a little one is so incredibly fleeting. Soon, he will be reaching and grabbing, and my days of knitting with a baby in my lap will be over for the time being.
My past couple of weeks have been full of angst, as I have been battling a flare up of my lifelong problem with anxiety. My trouble with this comes and goes, and I have spent the past decade or so learning how best to take care of myself and treat my anxiety naturally. (A friend pointed out that my current issues may be related to a breastfeeding induced magnesium deficiency, so I have started supplementing.) Some of the ways that I deal with anxiety are organizing or cleaning and knitting. Currently my life is pretty devoid of organization, or the time to keep everything neat and tidy. My knitting time is scarce as well. So, it’s no wonder I am having issues. When I start struggling, I sometimes begin to beat myself up in the parenting department because my anxiety can be a bit crippling, making it hard to accomplish all that I want to. I worry about silly things, like that no matter how I try, all of my children will one day require therapists (or insert some other bad outcome) because of my shortcomings as a mother. This is not my usual self talking, it is my anxiety stricken self, and I recognize that. I also joke about it. Humor is good. So, along with my thoughts of “how sweet” as I looked through this series of photos of me with my baby, I thought, “It’s good that I am teaching him to knit this early. He’s going to need knitting to help him cope one day.”
Moving right along: Seth arrived on the scene next, grabbed my camera and stood, rapidly firing, saying that he wanted to make a movie of the photos.
So, with my stepdad’s help, I made one for him. It is far from perfect as I don’t know what I am doing and my camera wasn’t shooting quite fast enough, but I think Seth will be pleased when I show it to him. I do wish I could knit that quickly! But then again, knitting that fast wouldn’t be very relaxing. I suspect I’d get out of breath. (the little film is now missing–sorry!)
Sunday afternoon, I cast off this sweater I’ve been working on for Beatrix; the yellow sweater that she specifically requested. The one that made her smile and say “mine?” everytime she saw me working on it.
Oops.
Guess, I didn’t actually need to go up two needle sizes to make the size 18-24 month fit her. Guess I didn’t need quite so many additional pattern repeats either. Guess I should have knit a swatch…
Once I weave in all the ends and block this sweater, it will look lovely on Larkspur though.
As of today, I am making a new rule for myself: I will no longer divulge any information about who I am knitting for until the object is completed. This will save me in the upset two year old department, because, “Bea-noonie, I’ll knit you another one for this winter, and next winter you’ll fit the yellow one! Won’t that be great?” didn’t really cut it.
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