Toddlers and trantrums

For sometime now my mother has been telling me to document my daily goings on with my son. As it didn't seem enough already to be knitting as much as possible plus having bipolar, yes I have a toddler!
A toddler with attitude!
He is only 15 months old and has just learnt to walk and talk but this has not stopped him beginning his terrible 2's early.
His world evolves around cats, he can spot one a mile off. As a parent you wait with great anticipation of your child's first words. Will it be mummy, dada not our son his first word was cat. Our cat is tormented and chased everywhere, but thankfully is very patient and loves our son very much, so much so he sleeps next to the baby monitor. Anyway I dygress. I wish to tell you about last Tuesday's troubles.

As previously I explained that I've been a bit depressed recently and my mental health team requested an urgent blood test. My husband works at the hospital and the bus goes straight to the hospital from the bottom of our road. Perfect! Not to be.

Started with son eating a penny that morning after having us up all night. I was unsure of it being a penny at the time because a fished one out of his mouth yet the grinding noise continued then stopped, but I felt the morning was successful as I managed to blow dry my hair, so off we go.

Got on bus and fine, got out of bus stop, not fine! The screaming started, when my son screams he really screams it's ear piecing. I try bribery with kit kats, drinks and biscuits none of which is working. He is now stiff like a star in his foot muff and has started holding breath. I have to get him out. Instantly he stops and sit on my lap bonus, 5 mins later he starts wanting to stand up on my lap more screaming. I give in and hold him tight while he wiggles around. Driver slammed the brakes on and the empty pushchair goes flying. In the middle of all this a bus went past with the picture of a cat on it so he began screaming "cat" and jumping up and down on my lap. Needless to say I got off the bus a few stops early and the minute I did he went to sleep after another screaming fit to put him back in the pushchair!

I arrived at the hospital, I really must of looked like shit because my husband stopped work and straight away said I will run you home. After my test it was nearly time to take infant to nursery so we decided to go straight there, after another battle to get him in his car seat. We were off and drop off complete.

I went home to relax and abandoned all housework for sleep. I nested down on the sofa with a blanket and the sun swung round into the the window and on me it was wonderful.

Then the phone rang

"Arthur's been sick, can you pick him up"

I wasn't going to admit it was because of the penny most likely so I made my excuses and left. He was perfectly fine and pushing around on a walker.

That was Tuesday

Bi-polar knitting

Hello all,

I am sorry for the lack of posts in the last two weeks. As in my previous mood scarf blog I explained that I have Bi-Polar disorder. My lack of posts recently has been because of this, as I am having a dip in mood. As a result my mood scarf has taken on a sad shade of navy blue with the odd line of grey. To be honest I may have added or lost a day as when I am depressed I loose track of time/days/week and even months!! 

Currently the scarf is looking like this:

It's also developed a weird shape which I have yet to decide if I should re-knit or keep as an expression of my mood. I guess now would be a good opportunity to explain a bit more about my disorder and how it affects me on a day to day bases. 

I have been diagnosed as Bi-Polar Type 1, mixed stated, rapid cycling. I Found this neat little illustration that sort of explains about it

I have had bipolar all my life, even at a young age I remember feeling angry and different, in my teens my disorder developed to a type 2 which meant in a cycle of every 6 months I would over-achieve then crash and go to bed for 2 weeks then the world would seem better. I make light of it but I did try and kill myself and ran 4 different jobs at same time plus through a teaspoons at my husband 😜

In 2013 I had my cheek son and all hell in my mind broke loose, I became very very very ill, I tried to end my life 3 times and was left a shell with no control of my mind. I spent six months in something called "home treatment" to stop me going into hospital. We are now in 2015 and I still have people visit me every 2 weeks, to check I am alive. 

I live my life day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute. 

But I love my family.

And I love KNITTING!!

Mood Scarf Knit Along

You might have noticed by at the start of my blog yesterday I mentioned that I DON'T do garments well I am going to buck that trend and do a scarf. "A scarf?" I hear you say, well yes I am, but as always with me its a bit unusual.

Last year I became aware of something called a mood scarf, the famous Jem Weston made one and it looked amazing when finally completed. the idea being that you track you daily mood over a space of  time by knitting two rows everyday for a year in a set colour for that mood.

Although this sound all good fun there is a serious reason for me doing it. I have very serious Bi-polar type one disorder, at times I am prisoner to my own mind and mood and have no control over my behavior or actions. I am meant to keep a mood diary which I track my mood on a scale of 1 to 10 on a little grid,  this is standard practice with people with by bipolar to help them understand their mood. I personally think they are boring and never ever do it, so this mood scarf will become my diary.

I have choose to use The Women's Institute Soft and Chunky , which is exclusive to Hobbycraft. It is an Acrylic/Merino Mix and is very smooth in texture.

I have chosen the colours of Grey, Teal and Navy, as I don't really want to be walking round with a rainbow scarf on at the end. I will also only be doing one row a day because I have chunky yarn and I might end up with a Dr Who scarf if not careful. 

                                      

The selected colours will mean 

1-4 Suicidal/depressed and low

5-6 Normal (boring)

7 - 10 Happy / Hyper-manic  and manic (nutty)

You might also be think why today, well today is my Birthday! I am 29 so if this lasts a  year I will be 30 on completion. I will keep you up to date with it as it progresses over the coming months.

Welcome

Hello all,

Welcome to my little corner of the web.

 My name is Hannah or the Norfolk Ninja Knitter, I use to run a blog about my knitting but I had not posted for over 2 years and since then I have completed so many new things plus had to fit in having a baby in that space of time too. So I thought it was time to update and start afresh. 

My passion is knitting, just knitting. Not crochet or sewing just knitting. It's the only thing I am any good at. I can knit almost anything but garments, I DON'T do garments. I knit jewellery which you can buy, toys which I now take commissions for and all sorts of weird and wonderful thing. I like to test the boundaries of knitting and work on a large scale of with unusual items. This is why I don't do garments, it takes to long and all you do is go backwards and forwards, row after row. I like a challenge or something unique. ( say all this I will be tackling a type of garment in my next blog, but as always it has a twist) 

So sit back I hope you enjoy my blog, check out the "about me" and the "Shop" pages to learn more about me or see my work