Hooky Day February 07

Let's see, I'm sitting on my couch watching Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, nice and cozy with my blanket. I've dyed away my grey and watched yesterday's General Hospital already. I think it's a successful day off so far.

I have been continuing to go through hell with the damn placket sweater. I got through the seed stitch band on the lower half but I realized that I hadn't cast on the right number of stitches. I was casting on when I was riding the train to work but I must not have finished by the time I got to my stop. When I picked it up again on the way home I just started knitting. I ripped it out when I realized it was too small and started yet again. I'm not sure I'll have the patience to do that again if I find another mistake. If Ian didn't love the sweater in the picture I would have given up all ready.

I"ve been very monogamous so far with projects but I think I'm going to need something going on the side to help me deal with the sweater. I'm thinking some socks, or maybe even the Swallowtail shawl. We'll see, all I know is that Ian can't bust me knitting on anything that isn't his sweater.

Ian's school called yesterday, it seems that in the process of doing all his assessments to get him back into special ed they have come to the conclusion that he may have a problem with his eyes. It seems that this can account for many of the problems he has in class. One of his eyes does seem a bit lazy and there are little things that make me think that it's a possibility. So we made an appointment for him to be assessed and we'll see what comes of it. The odd thing is that usually when they bring up some new thing they think is wrong I flip out or at the very least get depressed. Rinaldo is more than a little upset by this but I'm fine. My friend said that maybe it's because they are looking for a cause and giving us options to deal with it but I don't think I'm that rational. I think it's because I grew up in the blind and visually impaired community, it holds no mysteries for me. What they are talking about in Ian's case isn't even like my parents or their friends. His eyesight is seemingly quite good, if there's an issue it's with focusing or processing or something like that. That's nothing in comparison. It would be somewhat comforting to have a concrete reason that can be dealt with. Of course life isn't that simple so I'm adopting a wait and see attitude on the whole thing.

Risa and I have opened the Knitting Bloggers webring for the first time this year. I think I'll be doing a lot of work on it this weekend.

Have a good one...

Well last week was a little bit of hell, there was an incident at Ian's school that I won't go into but it made the teachers want to act on getting his case re-opened for Special Ed. We have all agreed that he should repeat kindergarten and that he should do so in a Special Ed setting. For whatever reason the class he is in is doing nothing for him and in fact he is regressing quite a bit within the classroom. Thankfully there is no evidence of it outside of school. In the meantime we're trying to get the school to agree to letting him only attend for a half day. His problems seem to be mostly severe anxiety but couple that with his speech issues and it's a recipe for disaster. I just don't want this year to leave any scars on him so I'm hoping half days will make it easier for him to get through. Once the assessments are all done and CSE agrees to the teacher's recommendations we will have to decide if we should put him in an entirely new school. Thankfully the special ed teacher will be cycling back to kindergarten in September so he can stay if want him to but right now I'm feeling a bit betrayed by the school so I'm not sure staying is the best thing. We'll see.

This whole thing made me such a freakin' ball of anxiety. I was seriously contemplating going to see my dr. for some kind of medication. I was up at 3AM every night and I couldn't stop ruminating on the whole thing. It did ease up over the weekend although this is Ian's first day back at school (the incident stemmed from him becoming ill at school) so the pit in my stomach has made a return. It is the most difficult thing being responsible for someone else's life and what will become of it. The husband brought up some interesting things about why I handle this kind of thing so badly or I guess cope with it so badly. My life as a child was filled with chaos. There was no order to it and so as an adult I crave order above all else. When you have kids that is not to be especially one with special needs. So when crises arrive I kind of flip out internally. Thankfully I can navigate them fairly well so others don't notice much but inside I'm torn to shreds. I'm not sure that there's anything to be done about it, it's just the way it is.

In the meantime I knit...

...Ian loves his hat:
...although you can see by his eyes he's had quite a rough week too...

Here it is from the side:
I'm pleased with it overall but I really need to figure out a better way to do ear flaps,I'm not crazy about the way they came out. If I had my way I would take them off and make the brim longer instead. The hat is not mine however and it's recipient loves the earflaps just the way they are:D

In the midst of drama I crave comfort knitting so I went stash diving and came up with some Morehouse Merino I had bought for a Clapotis 2 years ago. I cast on yesterday and here's where I am this morning:

This was supposed to be a Christmas present for Rinaldo's boss the year I bought it, but that was the winter my mother died so I swore off all holiday knitting that year. Now it will be a "just because" present.

I also decided it was time for a change of hair:

The picture sucks, since the 3-5 lbs I put back on seem to all be in my face and I am paler than I could ever get when I used to use make-up for just that purpose, but I'm liking the hair.

Here's to wishing for a better week...