Six years ago I began to worry that by the time my children got around to having children my arthritis would be too bad to knit them any baby clothes. Oh, but I could get started, couldn’t I? And just set aside whatever I made?
I was half way through a pretty pink dress when my daughter Heather announced that she was pregnant. Oh yeah, oh joy. Oops, a boy. Put the dress away. But then my son Phil and his wife Katie announced they were pregnant. Yeah, get out the dress. What? Another boy? Put the pink dress away.
Fast forward. Heather’s pregnant again. Where’s the pink dress? What? Another boy? Okay, but wait, now Katie’s pregnant again! Huh? A fourth boy? Four boys in two years? Dang! Put the pink dress away!
At some point I moved. My youngest son Blake packed up all my stuff, and his stuff, and it went out everywhere. Into storage, under Phil’s stairs, my dad’s garage, Heather’s backyard. I unpacked. I couldn’t find Auntie Han’s 100-year-old teapot. Nor could I find the pink dress. . .oh no, oh dear, guess what? Katie pregnant. And it’s a girl!
We go through everything. Even my mother’s closets. It’s simply not to be had; the pink dress has run off with the teapot.
So Evelyn Rose is born and the pink dress with all the rosettes along the bottom of the skirt has vanished. Wouldn’t it be nice if Evelyn Rose could wear it for Easter? There’s a renewed search, but she did not wear the pink dress. Suddenly Blake started making noises about getting his books out from under his brother’s stairs.
Mmmmm….
“You don’t suppose the pink dress got in with Blake’s books, do you?” I asked Phil.
“Want me to look?”
“Heck, yes.”
“It’s not going to be there,” poo-hooed Katie. “All the boxes under the stairs are heavy.”
Yeah, well, okay. She and I went down to the yarn shop at the beach and bought more yarn and I started in again. I was two inches into it, 360 stitches a friggin’ row!, when she e-mailed last night, “PUT DOWN THOSE KNITTING NEEDLES!”
Now ain’t that just the cutest dress you ever saw?
And the cutest little baby to wear it?
It goes to show two things:That babies do not arrive via sexual intercourse, as some still believe; babies, in fact, arrive when middle-aged women begin knitting baby clothes and dotty old women begin losing them…And that God does indeed answer prayer; I did not want to knit that dress again! Okay, so he’s a little pokey about it, but there’s the dress. It fits. And we got our girl! What more do I want?
Oh? In case anyone cares? Auntie Han’s teapot was in with the dress.
So all’s well with my world. Yours?
