♥ Down With the Knitty Gritty ♥ ™: Cabled Tunic

Life has seemed to caught up with me. That's part of the reason I haven't been posting as often as I'd like. (That and I haven't made much progress with any of my projects. Except for socks, I have been trying to keep to doing one project at a time since I have so many WIP's.) Ahhh, life. Nothing but the good stuff, eh?

As some of you may know, my son Jem, (who is 8 years old), has really been struggling the past year, what with us moving, (without his Grandma at that), going to a new school, having a new sister, etc. The problems have only gotten worse and I'm sorry to say that I'm at a point of giving up. We got, another, phone call from the VP of his school yesterday. Apparently Jem tried stealing a first graders lunch box. He tried scribbling out the childs name and putting his on it instead. After realizing he couldn't get away with it, he ditched the lunch box and someone found it yesterday. The biggest problem is he continued to lie about what happened even after the VP called. *sigh* Boys! *sigh* Children! I've had to meet with the school staff twice now, as well. This time to start an IEP. His progress for third grade has been minimal. Not enough to pass him to go to the fourth grade. And his teacher has told us that he has been participating less and less in class. I honestly don't know what else to do. He's in therapy, (at first we thought maybe he had ADD/ADHD), outside of school and then has school counseling once a week on Thursdays. They have in an extra reading group, three times a week, and a math group once a week.

I know things will come to pass, but it seems as though things will only get worse first. "Worse" enough that we have to take Scarlett, (our dog), to a shelter. (This is what's really been eating away at me for a while.) She's a great dog. But, the way Jem plays with her isn't so great. She gets so riled up and has nearly tripped me, and Shawn, when we hold the baby. She chases Dalton, (our cat), and while she doesn't hurt him, he goes nutty. At our old apartment I had a huge park I could take her to next door, but now I can't even let her run around outside since we aren't technically supposed to have a dog. (That's the "rule" though we aren't the only one with a large dog. We have a neighbor who has two dogs and another who has two pit bulls across the way.) Shawn worries that Scarlett will eventually get sick of the rough housing and I have to agree. She really needs a home that doesn't have an out of control boy. It really saddens me. I love her to death. We tried giving her to two people, but one has a broken fence and four sets of cats, (two of which are pregnant), that live in the back yard, and the other already has a dog. I can't get rid of the kid, so I have to do something with the dog. *sigh*

In knitting news, I managed to finished the back of the Cabled Tunic. If this thing gets finished by Fall/Winter 07, I will be shocked. It's just a lot of work. I've counted the minutes it takes just to do the twisted rib rows at the bottom...9 minutes each. That's a lot for 169 measly stitches.

I know that it will be worth it.

Close up of the cable panels and twisted rib: