New Hobbies with Old Friends

Last Friday night, in the riveting town of Independence, three 22 year olds got rowdy. By three friends I mean two of my roommates and myself and by rowdy I mean we knitted. That’s right ladies and…more ladies (I’m fairly certain only females read my blog) I am proud to announce that I can knit. This was not a declaration I could have made at the beginning of that eventful Friday night.

My Pinterest-savvy roommates Alison & Wendy were busy crafting the day away and knitting their own headbands when I joined them in the living room. I sat staring at the TV twiddling my craft-inept fingers when future teacher Wendy asked if she could teach me how to knit. At first I thought, “Psh, yeah right, good luck with that!” but then I remembered it was only about 6pm on a Friday night and we had no other plans, so challenge accepted. My second challenge of the night came when my sister called and, after telling her my plans of learning how to knit, told me I should live-tweet my first knitting experience. The rest of the night went like this:

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

2 things I never do that shall occur tonight: knitting & frequent tweeting. Let the knitting live feed commence!

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This is what my intense knitting face looks like: 

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Rows 1-3 down. Looks like a cat mangled some yarn. I hear it doesn't get better until row 4.

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K8Arnold Kate Arnold

So, I think I forgot how to knit between rows 3 and 4. Sucks.

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Somewhere around this point in the night I had to call on the knitting master herself. Celebrity knit from WB:

K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Oh dear, I began with 18 stitches in my knitting and now I'm at 25. I've managed to make an already difficult task 1.39 times harder.

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K8Arnold Kate Arnold

I've taken to beating myself with knitting needles.

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K8Arnold Kate Arnold

Holy knit this is hard! Realization: learning to knit may not be a one-night dealio.

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After all that tweeting and tangling of yarn I ended up with this beauty:

I decided to call that good and cast off (check me out using real knitting terms). I knit a canoe. Or a banana holder. Or a bracelet. It's a very versatile piece of handiwork. 

Despite my lack of knitting skills during that initial endeavor, I stuck with knitting and went on to buy more yarn in order start a trendy headband of my own the next night. That's right, not only did we stay in and knit on a Friday night, but we made it a double header and did it on Saturday night too. And the best part is our party multiplied (Shout out to Avery!):  

In case you were curious, I've gotten a lot better in the last five days: 

(Completed project one in purple and new project in progress in sage) 

Truthfully I should have just taken it from Pheobe and known knitting was "Too hard! Too hard!"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrWQO4SwGfw

Only in a Daycare

Here’s a little installment I like to call “Things That Would Only Happen at My Job”:

1.       Topless Tuesday and Naked Thursday (Ok this one might happen at other forms of employment, but only at my job can it happen and be purely innocent). Sometimes we eat really messy things for lunch, things like spaghetti with a red sauce, pudding, or any kind of juice. Since those items are a hazard to clothes and kids can’t seem to figure out utensils, the solution is to take their shirts off during lunchtime. But once the shirt is off and lunchtime is over the kids only manage to lose more clothing. So by the time their parents come to pick them up, they’re either down to their skivvies or running wild with their bare bums out. For a kid, everything’s just more fun in the nude.

2.       Public making out. The kids are at an age where they’re learning how to express love. The only thing they know on the matter is that their parents kiss them in order to show familial affection. So when they want to show their friends at daycare that they love them, how else would they do it besides kissing them? The only problem is that the kissing is unhindered. They all kiss each other: girls kiss boys, boys kiss girls, girls kiss girls, boys kiss boys. That’s not so bad, but they do it all the freakin’ time and for extended periods of time. They’ll just sit there with lips pressed to one another and eyes open and checking things out for the duration of Circle Time. My boss is like a broken record throughout the day teaching, “Please don’t kiss your friends. Kissing spreads germs. You can hug your friends or show them gentle pats, but please stop kissing each other.” 

3.        Poop Show & Tell. Typically in any other job people would go to extreme lengths to keep what goes on in the bathroom as private as possible. Not at my job. We routinely clap and cheer when a youngster makes wee wee or poops in the potty, which is weird enough at a place of employment, but the other day things got even weirder. A little girl called for assistance in the bathroom and I found her sitting on the regular-sized toilet. She exclaimed, “I pooped in the potty!” To which I responded with lots of encouragement and then handed her a piece of toilet paper and told her to wipe her bum. She took the TP, wiped her freshly poop-free bottom, and then handed the TP wad back to me and said, “here you go.” There’s no way I was touching that. I told her TP goes in the potty and she was big enough to do that herself.

Next time you’re in your place of employment, I encourage you to take a good look at your coworkers and supervisors and think about what it would be like if they partook in Naked Thursday, Public Making Out, or Poop Show & Tell.