The Coveted Panda Hat

Warning to Bennett (my brother): you will not find this post interesting.

To the rest of you: sorry ’bout that. I just take so much flak from my brother, I thought I’d save us both some time. His from reading it and mine from his play-by-play critique.

On with the show!

Also. I just want to say that right now, my office thermostat says 59.9 degrees. It feels like my office window is open. That’s what happens when we have a stiff west wind.

Sorry ’bout that, too. I just wanted to share my pain. You see, if you had read this year’s Christmas card, you will know that I am a heat-miser. I punish mostly myself (it’s the martyr in me), and have it bounce back up to between 66 and 68 when the kids get home from school. Ah the bliss of 3:30 pm when I warm back up and start peeling off layers.

I digress!

This is about the coveted panda hat that Morgan begged and begged and begged me for, oh I don’t know… around early November? You see, she spends her free time mostly surfing the internet in various outlets of debauchery: facebook, youtube, make-up and shopping. I know when she’s been “window shopping” online because my email invariably fills up with messages from her containing nothing more than underlined blue links directing me to her latest “must have” accessory or dress.

We live in Watertown. She has absolutely no need of dresses.

This falls on deaf ears. Because you know mom, there is a Sadie Hawkins dance coming in February…

I know what you are thinking, but you are wrong. In our quaint village, Sadie Hawkins is not what you remember it to be where girls wear their hair in pigtails and don outfits of cut-offs and plaid. It is the one and only formal dance of the year for underclassmen. Is that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Our homecoming ‘dance’ is akin to a bonfire in the gym after the football game and Sadie Hawkins is a formal dance — the one and only — that girls ask boys to.

It boggles my mind.

Honest to Pete. I just don’t understand how I get off on these tangents.

The panda hat. That panda hat.

So she was shopping in November, and sent me a link to this stupid panda hat on topshop.com. No, I don’t know what topshop.com is, but for some reason I remember that’s where it was. As usual, I ignored the email. A week later, I received another email with the same link.

Now, I could just delete these emails, since I never actually buy these things for her. But there is a small part of me that just can’t help but click them to see what insane thing she thinks she needs. Usually, it’s a strapless dress that hits mid thigh or some other random dressy thing. Cute yes. But why not a Patagonia fleece? Where did I go wrong in my parenting?

Doesn’t everyone want a Patagonia fleece?

I ignored the second email as well. Then, she yelled to me from the other room and said “Did you get my email??!” At which point I walked out there and said something critical and nasty about why would she want a stupid panda hat and to stop wasting her time online. When she didn’t drop it, I told her to put it on her Christmas list. Because, contrary to how stupid I thought it was, I’d be all for buying it for Christmas.

“They won’t have it then. You have to buy it now!”

“You can always find what you want. They will have it. Put it on your list.”

So, early December rolls around and I sit down to order the stupid panda hat.

And, they don’t have them.

Sold out.

Of course, I do not believe this, so I spend approximately two hours trying to find this stupid hat. It turns out that between the time Morgan earmarked it for coveting and early December, Katy Perry wore the identical hat somewhere, her picture was taken and the hat was identified as the “River Island Panda Hat available at topshop.com.”

Great.

Sure, I could buy it from the UK on ebay to the tune of $50 plus shipping.

Not.

So I did what any insane, multi-tasking, over-achieving, martyr-type, lapsed-knitting mother would do.

I knit one myself.

I love knitting. But I have no one to knit for. I don’t wear scarves, I already knit mittens for everyone, I’ve made several felted bags that no one uses, and sweaters are too ambitious . The opportunity to knit was exciting!

I bought some cream yarn, used some brown yarn I had, found an online hat pattern and scrutinized the itty-bitty panda hat photos on the internet to copy the pattern for the face.

I thought for sure Morgan had figured out what I was up to since I always forget to close the windows in my browser and clear the history. She’s on my computer all the time. Not to mention the fact that I was suddenly knitting again.

Anyway, aside from my very poor attempt at integrating the face color into the main color (I had never done that before and the eyes and nose sort of pucker because the yarn in the back was too tight:)

it really turned out cute. A little big, but then I’ve got the world smallest pin head, so it was hard to truly gauge.

We don’t wrap our Santa presents, so when she came downstairs on Christmas morning, it was the first thing she saw: “Panda!”

Then she said “You’re such a liar! You said you couldn’t find one anywhere!”

“I couldn’t.”

“But you did!”

“I didn’t.”

“Mom, you obviously did.”

“I knit it.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did!”

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

And so it went. Seriously. That is practically verbatim. She loves it and tells everyone “My mom knit this for me.” I still think it’s stupid.

But it was the best Christmas gift ever.

(For me.)