Knitting in the Margins

This is the time of year when I start to fantasize about yarn. It's an illness I think. And it's not like I'm a great knitter. I'm not. I'm a knitter who spends most of her time making a living, running three kids to soccer, cooking, cleaning, doing yard work, cleaning up cat vomit and, from time to time, blogging. The knitting fits into the margins. And the stuff you do in the margins is not the stuff you get good at.

But I like yarn. I like the feel of needles sliding back and forth, and the joy of having something to show for it. And I like the fact that knitting keeps me focused during conference calls. I have a lot of conference calls. And I like making things. Time is hands-down my most precious commodity. If I take the time to make you something, well, let's just say I must really, really like you.

There's something about this time of year, too. The kids are back at school. The temps have finally dropped out of the 90s. We can open the windows back up, breathe a little, and know that summer is over.

Which means it's time to think about Christmas.

No, really. It is. For those of us who dream of a handmade Christmas and lots of little gifts of time, it is.

Not that I should be doing anything of the kind. I still haven't finished last year's Christmas gifts. There's a plastic baggie next to my rocking chair, stuffed with a bright blue crocheted scarf and three out of four hot pink crocheted flowers. They are waiting for the fourth flower and a little stitching to finish them off. They didn't quite make it under last year's tree.

On the rocking chair is the nearly finished afghan I started knitting for my parents for Christmas 2008. I tried to give it to them last summer, when my dad turned 70 and their marriage turned 30. They saw it. They oohed. They aahed. They noticed the needles still in it. They gave it back.

And now it's all comfy, cozy and still needled up on my rocking chair.

In the chest of drawers next to my bed, I have a needlepoint canvas in the shape of a stocking, with the distinctive and half-finished half-circle of a piney Christmas wreath laid against a cream-colored background. I designed it myself for my daughter, for her first Christmas. I started it before she was born.

She's 8 now. And this year marks her ninth Christmas.

Oops.

That stocking is sitting on top of a stack of orange and magenta cotton I bought to knit her a sweater. It's a little tiny stack of yarn. But then, it was supposed to be a little tiny sweater. She was going to wear it home from the hospital when she was born.

She didn't, of course. It's kinda hard to wear unknit cotton yarn. 

But I dream. I dream of knitting. I dream because it's Christmas. Or close to it. Well, closer.

I want to make one of these. Because I think my five-year-old frog squisher deserves one. And for my daughter, this one. Because she misses our dog.

I hope the kids still like them when they're 20. Because that's about when these will be finished.

Gullible Much?

The night I wrote my last post, about how my Kindergartener didn't know where the bathrooms were at school but his good friend Invisible Man did and just wasn't telling, I did what any good mother would do. I fired an email off to the teacher and said, "Hey, somewhere along the line, my little guy missed the whole bathroom talk. Can you give him a refresh?"

That proved to be unnecessary.

The next morning, over breakfast, I tried to coach the redhead to ask his teacher to show him the bathrooms. Then my amazing au pair chimed in, reminding him that he'd been to the bathrooms in school with her, many many times ... and that's when I caught it. The little glimmer in his baby blues, the nearly smirk that flashed across his face ...

He was joking.

The teacher confirmed it later that day. She asked him where the bathroom was, and he pointed right to it. My kid knows exactly where to go. The whole thing was an elaborate hoax designed to pull the wool over his mother's eyes.

He got me. Yes, he got me, and it cracked him up.

I'm gullible. I admit it. But this, I think, is more than that. This is a bone-deep gullibility born of nearly 12 years parenting an Aspie. I mean, I can tell when my kids are lying. Every mom has a built-in radar for truth. I know when they haven't brushed their teeth or washed their hands, when they skipped out early on the homework or watched a show I don't allow. That's easy.

This is different. This is humor. It's not really lying - it's fibbing, with purpose.

And that, it seems, flies right over my head.

My oldest can't tell jokes. He doesn't get them. Too much nuance and non-verbal involved in the whole joke thing. He's smart as hell, has a laugh that lights up a room and appreciates a good pratfall when he sees one. But he's got a literal brain. He hears what he hears one way, straight up. Puns and pranks and verbal sleight of hand are just not in his vocabulary.

Which means they're not in mine. At least, not in my parenting vocabulary.

Then along comes my five year old. He's been making jokes since before he could talk. He's the kid who, when he was learning to walk, would weave like a drunkard through the living room going, "Whoooooaaaa! Whoooooaaaaa!" and then fall down - on purpose - because it would get a laugh from every adult in the room.

He knew exactly what he was doing. Because my redhead not only has a sense of humor, but it's wicked and it's clever and he makes regular use of it.

I have no earthly idea what to do with that. Except be proud of him. The kid's got mad skills. And wait for the next time. Because he's going to get me again.

The Invisible Man

My redhead has a new friend. His name is The Invisible Man, and he comes everywhere with us. Usually he sits in the back seat of my minivan between the redhead and his big brother. They strap him in with a seat belt because he can't buckle his own. He's engaged to be married to Junia, my diva's long-time imaginary friend. Which tells you a little something about The Invisible Man that you may not have figured out yet.

He's not real.

He does, however, go to school. It seems he wants to learn to read.

This afternoon, as my redhead and I tickled our way through his big brother's soccer practice, my redhead announced, "I think I might have peed my pants a little."

I was surprised. "Didn't you go to the bathroom at school?"

"No. They don't have bathrooms at school."

"I'm sure they do, peanut. Every school has bathrooms."

"Not mine."

"Are you sure?"

He put his puzzled face on. "Maybe I don't know where it is."

"Did you ask your teacher?"

"No. 'Cause The Invisible Man knows where it is."

"Oh." Time for my own puzzled face.

"But he's not telling. It's a secret."

Ah. Well that makes more sense, then.

I think it's time to send a discreet note to the teacher. Because it's really not fair if she's only showing the imaginary people where the bathrooms are.