Curve ball

Before I tell you about the cruel blow I took this morning at 5:13, remember the Fleece Artist kid mohair roving I got? Yesterday (what with Tuesdays being for spinning) I was diligent and spun the rest of it up. I plied it, and look at this…
FA-mohair
I understand if you need a moment. It’s a profound thing of beauty, and at the risk of incurring some sort of spinning based revenge from the planet, I have to say that the spinning is pretty darned good. Overall, I think this may be 180 metres of the nicest yarn I’ve ever made. (By “nicest” I mean that I expect that this yarn will, by simply existing in the universe, lead us all a little closer to wiping out crime and leading lives of quiet fulfillment and simple joy.) A closer look?
laceweightFA
Moving, isn’t it? The urge to drape the skein around my neck and go waltzing around the kitchen while blasting The Brandenburg Concertos and weeping for the beauty of it all is almost more than I can resist.
I when that was done, I grounded myself by knitting the amhole armseye armscye of the Freudian slip.
armedgebt
I know that this pales in comparison to the excitement of the very beautiful laceweight, but what can I say. The universe seeks balance.
Every stinking school day morning for the last 9 years has been the same. My alarm goes off and I stagger into the children’s rooms to begin the process of convincing them to get up. I will confess that they come by their reluctance quite honestly, since every single morning that I get up in time for school is a triumph of the human spirit. At least once a week I fail to respond to my alarm and leap up at 8:15 to ricochet around the house putting together sandwiches and screeching things while finding lost library books and the form for the choir thing. I can get the girls up, the lunches made, the books and forms found and shoes found and everyone out the door with breakfast in them in 14 minutes. This is the record. (It is bad that I know this. Since we have to leave at 8:30, every morning at 7:30 when the alarm goes off I have this argument with myself about how if I *can* do it in 14 minutes…why don’t I get up at 8:16?)
When my alarm goes off, I go and try to wake the girls. I start with nice mommy talk. “Good morning little dollies, rise and shine, mornings are nicer if you don’t have to rush” and work my way though the full line of interventions until I’m yanking the blankets off of them and whipping their clothes for the day around like I’ve lost my mind. (Which, I suppose I have) For their part, they run the gamut of potential responses in a traditional order. Play dead – ignore – moan – cry – claim illness – claim exhaustion – refuse – get up -be foul tempered to the crazy lady whipping your clothes around.
This is every school day morning.
Yesterday morning I inexplicably woke at 6:30. It took me a moment to work out what I was hearing. All three of the ladies up, making breakfast, brushing teeth and speaking to each other in lovely voices. Stuff like “Samantha, I found your spelling book for you, shall I put it in your backpack?” and the unbelievable reply “Yes please…your waffles are ready”. It was like waking up in a Surrealist painting. Was I dreaming? Was this real? Had I finally slipped away in my sleep, killed by housework and unmanageable deadlines? No, no…it was real, the mountain of laundry a sherpa would find daunting still stood by the door.
Turns out the girls have decided that it would be a nice change to start their days early so that there is no rushing. they plan to get up even earlier tomorrow.
I am speechless. It is a testimony to parenting. See that? All these years of saying that and it finally sunk in. I feel overwhelmed. You know, you dream and you dream…you hope that your children are going to learn what you are trying to teach them and then one day, it all comes together. I feel badly for all you mothers out there who haven’t had it happen for them.
Then this morning at 5:13 I wake up because all three of their alarm clocks are blasting and they are all sleeping like the dead. I go round and shut them off, and return to bed. Joe (appropriately) quizzes me on “what the (*&^%$!!! ” is going on.
Human frailty Joe. Human frailty.