Knitting is a lot like parenting

Sometimes as a parent we make mistakes. Not huge mistakes, like not feeding the children for a week, or giving them knives to teeth on. Just little mistakes, like feeding them marshmallows with their dinner. (They didn't go to bed until nine last night) These aren't intentional mistakes, just innocent well-intentioned mistakes. The kind of mistakes that pave the road to a really warm place. The thought was well-meaning. The execution was fatally flawed.

Really it's the hospital's fault. When I was little I thought my Mom knew everything. I was sure they had given her a big manual at the hospital when she had her first child. This great big manual contained the answers to everything. If only the hospital had given me MY copy of the manual when Pork Chop was born things would be so much easier. The manual would have told me that technicolored flavored mini-marshmallows were a bad idea. But, alas, I have no manual. No cheat sheet for the tricky answers. I blame the hospital.

Then there are the mistakes born of pure frustration. Like when one child is screaming because another child won't give them a toy. Often the non-sharing child is blamed when really shouldn't something be said to the child who is stealing the toy. On a good parent day one might look to see if this was a sharing issue, or a stealing issue. On a bad parent day one might just want the children to be quiet, and if giving the toy to the screaming child will ensure said silence then why for the love of all that's good doesn't the non-sharer just give the screamer the toy? NOW!

Not that things like that happen in my house. I'm just dealing in hypotheticals.

Parenting is tricky.

As is knitting. So when one knit is frustrating a knitter, said knitter might put all her knits in a time-out. Even if one of her knits is soaking in soapy water, that knit might be put in time out as well to drown all weekend while the knitter relaxes. Said knitter might be so sick of yarn she might fill her time with other diversions like refinishing the kitchen chairs, or filing her taxes (I owe $23.00 to a city I no longer live in). The poor unjustly punished knit might still be sitting in a bowl of water on the bathroom counter.

Not that things like that happen in my house. I'm just dealing in hypotheticals.