Monday, October 26, 2009

In Which I Come Perilously Close to Becoming A "Look How Smart My Kid Is" Blogger

Last night Nutmeg wanted me to teach her how to knit. The thing about Nutmeg is:
1) She is very persistent as in "This reading lesson will not end until I can read the entire book."
2) She does not like to be helped, she wants to do it herself.
3) She is a perfectionist and gets frustrated and quits. I have seen her crumple up an entire drawing because she made an accidental mark and "ruined" it.
We started out last night with some worn size 13 bamboo needles and some bulky wool. It didn't go very well so I sent her to bed, dug through a foot of knitting stuff to find my very pointy plastic needles size 17 (I think) and some extra chunky acrylic yarn. A much more slippery combination .
Then I turned to that marvelous tool the Internet, looked up "How to teach kids to knit" and found this poem:

How to Knit:
In through the front door
Around to the back
Out through the window
And off jumps Jack

How to Purl:
Under the fence
Catch the sheep
Back we come
And off we leap.

It worked like a charm. She is knitting, alone, gets mad as a hatter when I try to help. One 10 minute lesson.
Watch out world there is a new knitter in town, age 3 3/4.

*At the risk of turning into a silly mommy blog can I just say I am so proud of Nutmeg? I have been looking forward to the day where I would teach my daughter to knit for a long time. Of course I thought that the day would be a little further along down the road!*

4 comments:

Keira said...

Totally geeking out for you right now!

Ann Agent said...

Yowsah -- that is Totally AWESOME!!!

grandmawhitehouse said...

Tell her I want a scarf for Christmas. Hee Heee
I'm so proud of her.

Katharine A said...

Very, very cool! I would be proud too, and I think it's fine and proper to crow Nutmeg's precocity. Who cares how many other mommy bloggers there are?