Countdown

Lately SK & I have discovered a fork in the road while parenting a "Big Boy".  SK's newest theory is that to be a good parent you must learn to be a creative liar.  I know what he's trying to say, but "liar" has negative connotations.  And I've been learning that honesty & truth isn't always pretty when it spews out of a kid's mouth.

Almost all creative lying is done because it's in our favor.  The train is always "broken" at the zoo.  When I've promised a Sonic treat, sometimes Sonic closes when it rains or when it turns 3:16 p.m.  Sometimes I regret my honesty when Gus asks, "Is it like the medicine you take everyday  so you don't have a baby grow in your belly?"  There are days when I would have rather told Gus that he has a Dong or a Tally-Wacker.  I'm having a hard time listening to Penis being rhymed with every letter in the alphabet.  And really, Dong & Tally-Wacker are funnier to hear.

Honesty is the better way.  (Zoo & Sonic lies are because we're lazy.  Don't judge.)  I didn't tell Gus that my birth control was candy or medicine for head/tummy ache because of what could have happened.  Last thing I need is to come home & find Gus popping hormones cause he didn't feel good.  Great, now I've got a Hormone Junkie to deal with.  At two, he asked, "What's this?"  There was never any discussion that we'd use different names for genitals.  I guess if I would have told him it was a Willy, I'd have to hear Willy, Nilly, Pilly, Zilly, Billy, & Milly all day long.  But the other day I got a flash of a question that I'd have to answer one day.  A question I dread because by the time Gus is asking it, creative lying might not work as well.  One day, he's going to ask the Calculator question.

You remember where you were the day that you realized a calculator would cut your test/homework time in half & increase your grade to an A+.  Someday Gus will ask,"Why can't I use the calculator all the time?"  What do I say?  It's true, Calculators are awesome!  I can't tell you the last time I scribbled out complicated numbers for multiplication.  I can't even imagine drawing the little house over the numbers for division.  I can add & subtract with the comfort & ease of my phone. But the response from the teacher or parent is always something similar to this, "You need to know the basics & you won't always have the calculator handy."  Am I going to have to say this when I really don't believe it?  Ugh. 

But on Monday, the "Know the Basics" phrase smacked me off my pedestal & made me question my future response.  I need to have everything written down: a virtual knitting calculator.  The charts are highlighted for even & odd rows.  The symbols are spelled out.  If I'm cabling, I need to write down which side I dig into the stitches & how to knit/purl them when I've moved them.  Increase rows are tallied & a counter is always used.  All this doesn't make my knitting perfect, but it does make my knitting dead easy.  It also takes away the actual understanding of why I'm doing something.  I'm doing it because it's written that way!

Right Leaning Cable

The other day I was knitting along and referring to my page.  I was almost to the top of the sweater when it hit me what I was doing.  This sounds almost stupid to even write, but I had no clue until this moment.  When I would do a Right Leaning Cable, I never really paid attention to the name or what it was actually doing.  It could have been called a Ba Ba Booey Cable.  I was about to push my right needle into the last two stitches through the front.  That's when it dawned on me that the cable was leaning to the right.  I always look at the cable as the entire cable; the bottom twist & the top twist.  Both those twists together made it hard for me to see that it leaned to the right.  My relying on the charts made it hard for to see what my knitting was actually doing.  At this moment, I could chuck the charts.  I knew by the previous cables which way I had to enter the stitches.  Back for the left cables & front for the right cables!  Next up on my knitting discovery, learning the real differences between a SSK & a K2TOG.

Left Leaning Cable

I know.  I know. I can almost hear people screaming, "It's called a Right Lean Cable!"  Yes.  But a name is just a name & I never took the time to understand what it meant.  Look, I'm not the brainy one of our family.  Ava sucked it all from Mom & we got the rest.  Imagine what our poor Bro must be like.  Sometimes we find him walking in circles talking to the blades of grass.  Kidding.  Sort of.  When it came to knitting, I just figured out how to do the cable & just did it without a thought.  My knitting revelation does not mean that I'll start deconstructing patterns or designing.  I'd still rather follow someone's hard work.  Albeit blindly.

I'm going to spend the next couple of days finishing Vivian.  I'm sure that I'll be doing it to the sounds of Gus' favorite new song, "Penis. Menis."

Lola.

edit to the post:  Dead Easy.  Famous last words.  I just counted my stitches & compared it to the total in the pattern.  90 stitches for the hood portion.  I've got 142.  What the hell?!  Maybe if the designer listed the stitches more often, this could have been avoided.  What to do now?  Should I rip to the sleeves?  I think I had the correct number of stitches at that point & that was the last place where the stitch count was listed.

2nd edit to post:  Slap to the head!  Figured it out.  Once again, I don't claim to be the smarter sibling.   When you rip with Cascade Eco Wool, the stitches stay put.  Nice to know.

Comments

[mamie]

oh, god, i am laughing. i think it is because of the penis v. tally whacker part, but maybe because you just knitted your way into a revelation.here we once referred to the boys' parts as 'their junk'. um, never claimed to be a lady. now we are going with 'penis' and sometimes pepacha (dutch slang). and believe me, it is all about the penii (there are two, you know) since they started self potty training. joy.