Monday is fired.
You hear that, Monday?? Take that! You and your forgetting-stuff-at-home, busy-phones, stressed-out nonsense; I'm done with you! haHA!
In other news, I keep reading everywhere how the knitblog is dying, the knitblog is on its way out, beat our chests and rend our skin, the knitblog, o the knitblog.
Dudes. Seriously.
Perhaps I'm jaded or overtired or something, but it's just not that big of a deal to me. It feels like the blogs I read -- are distilled, somehow. Pared down. In a good way. Of course, since I started working, pictures have become something that happened to Other Blogs, so perhaps my perspective is skewed.
But then, I didn't get into blogging for the knitting. I always had the knittalk list for that, and when I got my camera, I was going to show off pictures, sure, and that was fun...but rapidly, what I liked more was the stories. The friendships. The people I keep in touch with that I would never keep in touch with -- much less meet! -- if it weren't for the internet. I know that there are those of you who wander over regularly to find out what Lucy's up to, what I'm mad at today, and, oh yeah, if I'm knitting anything. I mean, sure, it started all about projects, but woman cannot knit sock yarn alone, or something similar.
Really. I started reading blogs because of the Yarn Harlot, and I started blogging because I wanted to be Cool Like Her. But what makes Stephanie cool? Is it that she was The First (I have no idea if she was, I'm just saying). Is it that she knits like a demon when the force is with her? Or is it her take on life, her turn of phrase, her way of making you fall off your chair laughing?
Every time I go to the yarn store, Robb asks if I'm going to have a yarn accident. You know, where you fall down in the yarn store, and swipe your credit card on the way by? That's because of her.
Not because she knit the (admittedly beautiful) snowdrop shawl.
Because of her I realized that women still breastfeed, that women still have natural births, that there is recourse to other options than the one shown on TBS's A Baby Story. I could care about what she's knitting, but I want to hear about her children, her life, her friends, I want to hear about the singular way she sees the world, because it makes me want to be more like her. A crunchy, hippie mama in birkies with the courage to take on all the Muggles in the world.
The knitblog isn't dying. The knitblog is becoming mainstream -- which means that it's big enough to take in everything. Knitters who get distracted by gardens and babies and whatever else life throws at us.
Because we are all knitters. And just because that's what we started talking about -- we can diversify.
***
Saturday was for cuddles this weekend, cuz Mama had a fuckup. Lynne, if you read this, I'm not telling my mother because I will NEVER hear the end of it, and no one was endangered, so really, we're just letting it lie. But I'm writing it down here because I need to know that other moms have had oopses too, and to be told that I'm not a horrible mom, so please feel free to indicate this down where there's the little comment box, 'kay? You know what to do.
This weekend, we went over to Dad's almost all day for his birthday party -- Poppy turned 60 this year, and Lucy, Robb, and I went to help him celebrate in style. It was a grand time; and there were a lot of kids needing naps -- somewhere in the chaos of getting one kid up and another kid down, the monitor for the room that Lucy was in got turned off. I put her down at 6, sure that she was drifting off to sleep -- 45 minutes later, I was shocked that she was asleep, she never sleeps long if we're away from home. I decided to go upstairs and check on her -- and as soon as I got outside the door to the room (which someone had closed, to "protect" her from the noise), I could hear her screaming her head off.
I don't know how long the poor little bean was crying in there, all on her own, thinking that mama had forsaken her. I'm guessing somewhere between 15 minutes to half an hour. She'd thrown up all over herself, the pack-n-play, her blankie, her sweater. She had puke in her hair, down her front, down her back. And what really broke my heart was that as soon as I opened that door and got inside her view, she stopped crying and held out her arms. She'd just been waiting for me.
I brought her downstairs, all messy and awful and got her cleaned up while she cuddled as close as she could get. A couple people tried to suggest that I should put her down to clean her up so I didn't get messy (fucking idiots); I ignored them while I got her not-so-yucky, and then nursed her, right there in the middle of the public view. I had one aunt look like maybe she'd say something, and another aunt just kinda got in the way and started talking about the intermittent rain. Go Aunt Rachel!
The rest of the weekend was fine. I knit one entire sock out of some LL Shepherd Worsted in Jeans that's been hanging around for a VERY long time, and got all the way down to the heel of sock #2. My house is still full of moths, but I can't find any yarn that they're munching...could it just be eggs that were laid in the carpet that are hatching?
Very bizarre.
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8 comments:
We call those moments in poor parenting. And let me tell you, that's nothing.
I can tell you stories that would make it seem like we are the worst parents in the world. Our children still like us, still are well adjusted socially and basically I think you have to work really hard to permanently screw up your children.
Just so you don't think you are alone:
The Christmas day we went to Rich's cousin's when I was pregnant with Dominic. Alexander had a cup of water in the car for the drive down. We put him in the high chair to eat at the relatives. He went in and out of it, played a bit, then got really fractious and whiny. Rich and I both tried to feed him, play with him, comfort him, change him, get him to nap. Nothing helped. Finally we got annoyed. Why are you being so awful? You need to behave better. Then, we realized that he had not had a drop to drink since the car ride down. It was now evening, and he hadn't had any liquid at all since the morning. Yeah, we felt like spectacular parents.
Our children are constantly hurting themselves. Not seriously, but enough that they might, perhaps whine about it. Mostly, we ignore the whining, because we know they are fine, tell them to suck it up and move on. Well while I was preparing lunch here, I think we had Amira at this point, Dominic started crying at the table. He said he was hurt. I told him he was a big boy, and to stop crying, I was getting lunch ready. I brought lunch out and found him bleeding from his forehead.
I could go on. You get the picture.
Yeah I agree. Diversify. Most of us knitbloggers are women, and women are expansive creatures. We embrace the tangent.
That exact thing happened to me and my oldest daughter at a neighbour's party. Except the neighbour didn't have a monitor and just said to me "I'm closer, I'll keep a listen for her and let you know if she needs you."
Spot the miscommunication there: her idea of the baby "needing me" was a lot different than mine, and she ended up letting my girl cry for almost 30 minutes while I was forty feet away, unable to hear her over the roar of the guests. Because she wanted me to have a good time, right.
Hugs to Lucy! And you. Having been a hearing-impaired mom when mine were little, I lived in fear of such scenarios and kept very close by my kids--but there was always one time sometime or another. From Lucy's point of view, you rescued her.
Oh sweetie! As you can see from the comments, as parents we have all had one mishap or another. It happens, but it doesn't mean we are bad parents. You fix it then and go on. Take care of yourself, and Lucy and Robb.
I'm not sure where the bad momma moment came or why you think your own mother would be mad at you (she's a mother too, remember?). I am sorry that Lucy cried longer than you would like, but truly it is ok. She survived (a bit messily, to be sure) and more importantly, she was happy when she saw you. Not mad at you. Happy. Believe me, now that my kids are 15 and 13 I would give anything for them to be happy just because I walked into their view!
Seriously, don't be so hard on yourself. Lucy was fine. You are fine. Every parent has one of those days. You try your best and in the end it is all you can do. I guarantee you, that Lucy has long since forgotten the incident.
Try to put it behind you. And don't be afraid to tell your mother. She probably did a few things as a new mom that she learned from as well.
Cheer up. Today is Tuesday.
*Hugs* - thank goodness it's Tuesday!
And babies are some distraction, it's true!
I had a BAD parenting moment...I dropped my FIVE week old onto a concrete floor. I still haven't fessed up about that one to anyone who wasn't there. My older daughter used to have a playgroup in a local restaurant every week. I don't own a stroller or a baby bucket, so I had to hold the baby or have her in the wrap the whole time. That day, I felt bad because I thought I hadn't been playing with my 2 year old enough. The baby was asleep, so I laid her down on one of the benches, and went to play with my two year old 6 feet away. THUD and screams...the 5 week old had managed to flip off the bench onto the concrete floor. Yeah I wanted to die, I couldn't believe I had let it happen. But, she's now 4 months and apparently is over the trauma.
Hi - just came over to your blog and love this post. You're right - all mom's have things that happen. We're not perfect, nor should we be. And there are a lot of us out there! I garden. I knit. I quilt. I breastfed both my children. I used a doula to give birth without any doctors and everything went fine. (I didn't stay overnight in the hospital during either birth. Just had them and left.) However, it is a tremendous amazing balancing act. Hang in there!
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