Spring

I know, I know, I know - it's still winter! Yet to me there is something SO promising about a New Year that I automatically start thinking 'spring' come January 1st even though there are weeks - nay, months! - of cold and dreary weather left in front of us.

It also could be that I'm currently pulling 3-5 gardening/seed catalogs out of my mailbox every day that has the whole growing/birthing concept weighing in the front of my mind.

Kim gave me a Nigella Lawson salt pig for Christmas.
It is one of the coolest things ever. Ever.

It also could be that there is a plethora of babies currently underway - has anyone else noticed that? A friend of ours delivered her second daughter just before Thanksgiving (silly me, I though her due date was in February, so I hadn't even yet plotted or planned any knitted item!), Anna from My Fashionable Life had a beautiful little boy right a few weeks before Christmas, Lola from Two Black Sheep is due to go in for a c-section to deliver her second son in just a week or so (hang in there, L!!!!!), Emily from Yarn Miracle is expecting her Mini Miracle in 8 or so weeks, and Cara from January One is due in.........March-ish, if my math is correct based on the belly pics she put up on her birthday.

Christmas loot for the Munch consisted mostly of Thomas the Train bits & pieces.
He adores them, but I have to say, they really do hurt if you step on any of those little f'ers in your bare feet!

(But, I must say here in very bold letters - there are no new babies expected here at Chez P'Sticks. Nosirree nohow! So Oma, keep knitting sweaters for Miss E and the others - no new baby knits needed this side of the Chesapeake anytime soon - not at least until I can wrangle the Munchkin into a shirt and/or pants in the morning without it sounding like I'm doing something as violent as peeling the very skin off his body - full, screaming hysterics for upwards of 20 minutes every time we try to extract this kid from his pj's - and he is potty trained. I might be head-over-heels in love with my little one, but LORDY he is a handful and I have not the strength or patience for two handfuls, much less two handfuls in diapers!)

Knitting loot! The best kind!

So between the seed catalogs and the babies springing up everywhere, it feels like spring to me. All that birth & rebirth & burgeoning life and suchlike - it just makes me happy. Plus, in all brutal honesty, I hated 2007. It was a horrid, painful, depressing year that started off with the news that an immediate family member had an extremely aggressive form of cancer and went downhill from there, if you can believe that. I'm hopeful and excited to turn away from that car wreck of the past 365 days and instead fill my noggin with hopeful, filled-with-promise, new-life-ish thoughts instead.

We had a quick family visit for a few days after Christmas, which is
always fun for the little guy. This is Munch with my dad.

Which brings me to my more pressing question:

Other than the most amazingly beautiful baby blanket that Ava knit for her soon-to-be-nephew (because not only do I refuse to knit baby blankets as they take way too long and get far too monotonous but also I'm not as insane as A - and nor do I want to be. Because after knitting a blanket of that magnitude & cable-lisciousness, I'd be totally and completely bonkers.) what is the best knitted item you can give a new mom or a soon-to-be new mom?

I personally didn't use knitted hats much when the Munchkin first came out, and I didn't do knitted booties ever. But that was just me. He is a March baby, so I did use a few knitted lightweight sweaters - especially the kind that were particularly easy to fit over his wobbly huge head (and huge cab-door-like ears!) - but mostly I didn't bust out the knitted items until he hit his first proper cold snap. So that means that this current crop of babies could receive items in the 6-9 month range of sizes (perfect! 6-9 months of procrastinating knitting!) - which I not only personally prefer but I also find more practical and useful in the long run.

So I'm asking everyone out there - what is the best thing that you could give or receive? I keep leaning towards the peapod sacque that Parikha knitted, but that's just me........... Plus that's more of a new-baby item, which violates my above preference and rules (but rules are made to be broken, right?) - but again, that's just me.

What does everyone else think?

Happy 2008 Everyone!