an urban mama

it all started with seeing this blanket.

well, actually, it started about a year ago when i was pregnant with my first. i really wanted to knit something for my little guy, but had never knitted before. i enlisted the help of my (very patient!!) mom, who is an accomplished knitter. i rented a "how to knit" video from the local library. i checked out knitting books. but to no avail. i had, in my pregnant state, absolutely no patience for what i was finding to be an elusive skill. the things that were coming out of my mouth were not pretty. so i set down my knitting needles for a time.

but i decided it was time to pick them up again the other day when i saw the aforementioned blanket. quite literally, i love this pattern so much that i have considered trying for our 2nd child simply to be able to make this blanket (alright, i'm exaggerating, but it is a significant incentive!!). but, after starting to read the book from which this pattern was taken, i was inspired.

lately, i cannot get babies off of my mind. or the moms who bear them. having a son has given me a whole new, deeper respect for our gender and all its associated callings. being a woman is an incredible, daunting, humbling task. labor, sleep-deprivation, and mothering have all challenged me in greater ways than i have experienced prior to this year -- and the most humbling thing about it was to realize that literally millions -- billions? -- of women embark on this journey each year, not to mention the billions who are on the mothering path at any moment.

but the women i have come to respect the most are the ones who are doing it, for all intents and purposes, without help. without the support system that i have so dearly appreciated this year -- my husband who coached me through the delivery and gets up every morning with our son to give me some more sleep, my mom who shared countless overnight shifts in the early days and is always eager to babysit, my sister and cousin who are both always just a phone call away to give nursing, sleeping, or (more recently, ack!) discipline advice. i cannot imagine having lived the past year without them.

and yet countless women do it everyday. women who choose to bear their children despite imperfect circumstances -- knowing that life with them or life with an adoptive family, however different from their hopes and dreams for their child, is still precious, amazing, beautiful life.
these women and their children have been on my mind night and day lately, but i haven't really known what to do to love them other than to pray. but last night, at 5 am (rather than falling back to sleep after nursing my son!) i couldn't get off my mind the idea of perhaps knitting for them. it sounds fairly simple, even paltry, to write it here, and i know it isn't doing much. but i also know how much warm, soft and special things mean for your new little one. and i know that knitting takes time and when you have time, you can think and you can pray for the little one who will receive the blanket and for their mother. and hopefully receiving such a blanket would convey some of the respect and care i have been wanting to express to women who are taking the road less travelled. i am so glad the pattern i hunted down was in a book as interesting and inspiring as "Knitting for Peace."

so, if you, like me, are increasingly impressed with all that women around the world do and want to support the greatest of them all in a small, creative way, please join me as i embark on my first knitting project: knitting ::for:: 'the least of these'.

details on how you can get involved in the next few days...