Don't Knit While Sleep-Deprived

So, yesterday was one of those crazy-ass days. Some friends of ours were moving into their new home, and since I certainly couldn't help haul stuff around with my two kids in tow, I offered the next-best thing (or possibly the first-best thing), to watch their daughter while they did the bulk of the moving, so they could focus on getting that done and not have to worry about what she was up to.

Of course, then Friday night one of my online parenting groups erupted into controversy and so I got all riled up and didn't go to sleep at a nice sane hour like I should have, since I was facing a day-long 3-under-3 cage match, and there wasn't going to be anyone available to tag me out. (Who knew I could sling a wrestling reference like that? Not me, that's for sure.)

Then, for some inexplicable reason, I woke up at 6:30 Saturday morning. Six-thirty!! Since I wasn't due to get up for another 90 minutes, I peed, sipped some water and put my pale ass back in bed, knowing I was going to need every spare wink I could get.

Little did I know my brain had other plans. What followed was an hour and a half of fitful, restless sleep punctuated with dreams that ranged from the wack-ass to the deeply unpleasant. When my alarm went off at 8:00 I was groggy, confused, and really not ready to face the day.

In the Annals of Bad Parenting, I will be known as She Who Set Three Toddlers Worshipping At the Altar of the Glow-Box For Almost Eight Hours Straight. I'll be going to the Special Hell, with the people who talk during the Mommy Matinee.

However, cast not the stones, my friends - I am paying. We watched Bear in the Big Blue House: Potty Time With Bear FOUR TIMES yesterday. Four times! I still have the Toileteers song stuck in my head, in addition to the theme song and snippets of dialogue. (Bear says "potty" with the weirdest John Ritter-(rest his funny soul)-on-dope inflection.)

If I don't find a new earworm soon (gah! I hate that phrase! Always makes me think of Wrath of Khan *shudder!*), I'm going to be up at midnight listening to Laurie Berkner stuff, just trying to have something new in my brain.

Anyway, so at one point I tried putting my two down for naps, and so it was just me and my friends' daughter. So, in order to keep from passing out utterly, I tried knitting. Decided to work on one of my easier WIPs, which happens to be a dragonfly dishcloth I found here thanks to Carole's mention a week or two ago.

I printed out both the dragonfly and the alien patterns, because at a playgroup a couple weeks ago, my boys managed to break our hostess's lamp. She insisted it was just a garage sale item and not to worry about it (and it was pretty "vintage"-y, so I'm taking her at her word), but... you know, I worry about it anyway. I figured trying to replace it was doofy, but maybe a couple quick washcloths, right? Just a little something. Plus they looked fun.

So anyway, I was about halfway through the dragonfly cloth when I sat down yesterday afternoon with my friend's daughter next to me and began to knit. The first few rows went fine, but after that, things started to seem strange. Where was the head on this dragonfly? I'd done the lower set of wings, and had been at the lower edge of the second set... but where was the head? I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I set it aside thinking I would have to double-check the picture online later (since our color cartridge is dead I had just printed out the text of the pattern) to see what the heck was going on. Surely my memory of it was faulty.

Later on, after our friends came along and retrieved their daughter and left my tired, achy husband in her place (really, a bargain - our friends' daughter's favorite word these days is "no", and I was reaching the end of my ability to stay upbeat in the face of all that "negativity"....), I decided to take another stab at my washcloth. I sat down with the two-thirds completed washcloth and my pattern and was immediately confused.

What? These were not the directions from earlier in the day, what was going on here? And then I went, "Ohhh, I must have picked up the wrong pattern." And I looked at the top of the page and sure enough, it said... wait. It said Knitted Dragonfly Cloth. What the heck?

And then it hit me. I hadn't picked up the wrong pattern then, I'd picked up the wrong pattern earlier in the afternoon, and knit 12 rows of the wrong pattern!!! I'd been knitting an alien forehead onto the upper wings and head of my dragonfly. I was like a yarny Dr. Moreau!

There was nothing for it but to do the Frog Of Shame.

I frogged the dozen or so rows and put it back on a needle and stuffed it toward the back of my WIP box. (Yes, I have a big Rubbermaid bin full of WIPs and WAIPs (Works Almost In Progress) and other shameful things - don't judge me!) I'm hoping tomorrow I'll have the courage to face it again.