She Snuck Up On Me

Sam has been trying to get us, to wear matching outfits for years. I don’t know what her fascination is, or why she’s so keen on it.  Maybe it’s a weird throwback, some sort of attachment that hasn’t quite been cast off in the wave of "I don’t want to be anything like you" that is growing up, but she loves the idea. She doesn’t want us to wear the same outfit entirely (except for the footie pajamas she thought we should get at Christmas, an idea that had all the chance of working that I have of being mistaken for Beyoncé) but she does regularly suggest that we get the same shirt, or the same coat… I can’t explain it. It’s an odd little quirk.  I’ve asked her why she likes the idea, and she always just says "Because it’s awesome?"  She’ll suggest a matching outfit, then smile to herself like it’s the most satisfying idea in the world.  Then I shudder and we drop the idea. I’m middle aged. She’s 18. One of us is going to look dumb if we get the same clothes.   I have stressed several times that we will not be getting matching outfits.

The other night Sam was headed out the door and complained that she didn’t have a hat.  (She said this just like I am a negligent knitter/mother, rather than that she is the negligent teen who loses them.)  She was going out and  I was staying in, so I told her to take mine. Remember mine? It’s Wurm, knit out of Cascade Eco+. I love it.  She grabbed it, and went out and came back and said that she really, really needed a hat, and that she needed this hat.  We had the standard chat about how my things aren’t her things, and then, suffering some sort of maternal pang of affection for the little hat-stealer, I decided to knit her one.  (Truthfully, I figured making her a hat would increase the life expectancy of my own.)   A few questions later and it turned out that she really liked my hat exactly – and I remembered that I had enough Eco+ left over from Hank’s sweater.. so two evenings later – Sam has a hat.

Pattern: Wurm.  Yarn: Cascade Eco+ in "Ranier" Eight repeats instead of ten. Otherwise, knit just as written. 

I gave it to her this morning as she was leaving for school, and asked if I could snap a few quick pictures. She was grateful for the hat, and thrilled that it matched her coat, and extra happy it had arrived today. (It’s super cold and snowy.)  As she tugged it over her ears, and looked up at me, a broad smile spread across her face.  I said "Oh, you like your hat, I’m so glad" and the smile became epic.


"WE MATCH!" she beamed, and off she went. 
I can’t believe she got me. I never saw it coming.