knitting & cake

The other day, Serena saw a hat that her nine-year-old friend, Margot, made, and she decided she wanted to learn to knit.

She spent part of the morning in the living room, alternately whistling and shouting, "Darn it! Mom?!"

She wanted to start by making a scarf or a hat, and I discouraged her; those projects are too large. Then again, I remember taking guitar and having to learn scales before I could play a song. You really want to dive right in. And the best instructors let you. They teach you a move toward that end, but not in isolation.

So we decided to turn this into a pouch for her little digital camera. It'll have an orange flap and back and a blue front.

That is—if we can ever get past, "Oh, Shit! Mom?!"

When we walked the dogs this morning, there had been only talk of cake, of my daughter wanting to bake something all by herself, something chocolate.

Knitting was a kind of sublimation. We looked at a few cakes later today, once the knitting practice had been set aside—after miles of dropped and twisted stitches.

Whether the cake gets baked or the pouch gets created, I am just overjoyed to see my daughter wanting to make the same things her mother makes. People don't want to emulate something because they think it's easy. They want to do it because they think it's beautiful. It's one of the greatest compliments a mom—no, a person—can get.