What Was New is New Again

Let's make one thing quite clear: I am a shambles at Christmas knitting. Worse, I may be the knitting equivalent of the random detritus found on the floor after cleaning up a shambles. It's that bad, people.

I began my new job as a nanny on Monday afternoon. My little girl picked out a nickname for herself among several choices; she is now and forever more Little Bella. Her father has a touch of the harmlessly crazy due to consistent alcohol consumption and her mother works out of town for a month or two on end; I feel like I'm in The Nanny Diaries a little bit. Bella is a precocious child (I can spell 'phenomenal!') and has a Schedule. It's not completely packed like some of my kids at The Tutor Place used to be - third grade children who have "activities" from 6am until they fall into bed at midnight, only to rinse and repeat 5 days/week - and it's manageable. Or it will be once I get my new car and am not freaked about highway driving in the poor Saturn. I feel like a coach at a hospital's Terminal Ward: "Three more weeks, baby. Just stay with me for three more weeks, you know you can do it!" So far, the last two days have been fun. Her dad gave us permission to blow off Tae Kwon Do last evening, so we went to downtown Los Altos where we met up with Nadia and Cat and drank hot chocolate and coffee. Then we skipped - literally - over to Uncommon Threads and plopped down at their table, where Bella asked me to teach her to knit. Whether I had an ulterior motive for taking her to the yarn shop, I shall never divulge. Cashmere/alpaca couldn't drag it out of me.

So we sat down after oooing and aaaahing over all the lovely colors. And in less time than it takes me to write this, the little imp had mastered and was repeating "in through the front, around the tip, under the front, and off!" Within another 3 minutes, the only part I still had in the process is wrapping the yarn around the needle (Tomorrow will you teach me to do it myself? I like to be self-sufficient.) Then we bought her some Plymouth Worsted and some size 8 needles (The numbers must be how big they are. See, the 5's are smaller than the 8's!) and headed home, where her dad made us omelettes and told her there are "more useful things in the world than knitting!" I countered that knitting would be good for her math skills and her dexterity, so we'll see how that little battle turns out. Friday she's promised to help me pick out a Christmas tree since ManCandy is leaving for an early home Christmas tomorrow morning.

And back to the Christmas knitting shambles detritus that is my knitting basket. I have about 95% of one Dashing done, one Charade sock that according to the recipient needs more ribbing at the cuff of a cuff-down sock - dammit! - so will soon be zero Charade socks, and almost half of a Faina shawl. That's two boys and Mother Ship down; I think the rest will have to wait. I'm working with a lack of knitting mojo right now because school ended yesterday and I'm pretty spent in terms of Things I'd Like To Do. Maybe I'll drive up and meet Nadia in Tahoe tomorrow instead of work. A couple of days with nothing to do but knit by a fire sounds just about like heaven.