Knitting - good for the soul

I am in the process of knitting a baby blanket for a cousin of mine. The baby shower was today, and of course, I didn't get the blanket done in time. I'm about halfway, maybe a little more than halfway done. I really like it and think it's a nice pattern, but it's just taking a lot longer to knit up than I originally thought. Oh well, great art takes time!!

There is something about knitting... I can't quite place my finger on it. Maybe it's the rhythm of the needles, the repetitive movement of the hands and needles, the feel of the yarn.... I'm not quite sure, but it's mesmorizing. I have the best "thinking sessions" ever when I'm working on a project. The hands just seem to do what they need to do, and your mind is left to wander.

Where it wanders TO is always the question. You can find yourself thinking for hours about nothing in particular. Or trivial things, too. Like - SpongeBob. You never see any other sponges on that show. SpongeBob doesn't have any other sponge friends. He's left with a starfish and a squid. Doesn't he long for others of his kind? Am I the only one who wonders about such things?

But I digress.

Anyway, I hadn't knitted a baby blanket for awhile. I knit one a few years ago for a friend who was pregnant. But this is the first one in quite some time. Obviously, one of the topics my mind wandered to while knitting this blanket was the new baby that will (hopefully) we swaddled within it. I know it will be a boy. And, like his mother and father I'm sure, I thought about what he might be like when as he grows up. What his likes and dislikes might be. What kind of personality he will have. Will he have his mother's eyes? His father's mouth?

Unfortunately, with my life's experiences, I thought alot about his health. I tend to view most everything with the "autism glasses" that a parent of an autistic child wears. It's inevitable.

Autism affects 1 out of every 166 kids. Will it affect this child? What about the next one?

As I knitted this blanket, not only did I think about the baby boy who might be swaddled within it, but I prayed for him and his parents. For health. For strength. For all babies coming into this world.