Be careful what you wish for

Seven years ago, when I found out that I was pregnant with a boy, I felt a bit of panic. I grew up surrounded by girls, in a family where we had only a couple of boy cousins. I wondered, would I know what to do with a boy? How to play with him? How to relate to him and find common ground?

He is now six years old, and I have come a long way. Cars, trains, sports, hockey, I've learned about them all, alongside my son. True, I am still amazed at the level of energy, and I still have a hard time understanding how play-fighting is fun, but I can honestly say that I no longer have those worries about forming a bond. We are close, very close.

So you would think that I would have felt relief finding out that I was having a girl this time around, right? WRONG! Girls are complex and sensitive, and I started thinking of the importance of teaching them self-respect, and giving them confidence, showing them how to stand up for themselves. 

Of course these are all true for boys as well, but for whatever reason they never came to mind when I had Aidan.

And then I started worrying that I am already subjecting my children to a double-standard, when they are only this young. You can tell, I am sure that I have been driving myself mad!

In speaking to other moms though, I have come to realize that I am maybe over thinking the situation. The most important thing is to lead by example, pay attention, and also let their personality develop, as a lot depends on that as well.

So I have made the conscious decision to trust my motherly instincts and believe that I will know the right thing to do. The power of positive thinking, right? 

As if to reinforce this idea, a few weeks ago, I came across and advertisement for Dove, that to me, said it all. I decided to recreate it as a poster in Sienna's room.

It's quite a simple message, but I love it! If anyone else is interested in having it, click here for the JPEG version, and here for the PDF.


 

Never enough baby knits

Hi, and I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's day celebration. We had a beautiful day, a full house, lots of laughter and squealing children. I was planning a quick little post, but time just got away from me.

So I am back today to show off another adorable baby knit. I started this pattern while recovering from giving birth in the hospital. A dear friend of mine sent me this yarn from Berlin, and I wanted to make something special with it for my little one. 

A very popular baby cardigan on Ravelry is Puerperium (how DO you pronounce it?). It is written for a very small size, so it was perfect for my tiny 2lbs, 10oz baby. 

Well perfectly small for her to grow into anyway, as it still is a little big on her now, and she is 3 times as big.

It is a very fast and straightforward pattern. I enjoyed making it, and really like the way it turned out, but my absolute favourite part of this cardigan......the buttons! Aren't they adorable? Ever since I saw them in my friend's yarn shop, I planned on knitting a cardigan to fit them. I mean owls! You can never have enough owls!

The beautiful weather has finally arrived here in Montreal and I am planning on spending as much time outdoors as I can. What about you??

Loose ends - Colour Affection finished.

Maybe it's the spring, maybe it's nesting, but my focus lately has been to finish projects, to tie up loose ends as it may be. 

Looking back over my sparse blog posts of the last few months, I realized that I never posted photos of the finished Colour Affection shawl. So here it is.

This is a project that I started with my Stitch'n Bitch group, a knit that we all loved to hate. You may recall me agonizing over my colour choices, and the famous "to YO or not to YO" issue. The endless knit rows. 

I am happy I stuck it out however, because I have gotten quite a bit of wear out of it since I finished it, and it has also turned out to be quite a versatile piece of my wardrobe. I have paired it with a lot more outfits then I thought. And it has also been admired quite a bit. I love it when knits turn out like that, and let's be honest, that is not always the case. 

I would say that out of all of my knits, about three quarters I wear often, whereas the rest I have never worn more then a handful of times.

Which begs the question....what do YOU do with those knits? Do you frog them and re-use the yarn for better, more appropriate projects? Or is it too painful to undo all those hours of work? I am curious to know...