Being fruitful and multiplying
Feb. 3rd, 2026 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseWe have a medium-sized church; by which I mean there are generally about 150 people there on a Sunday morning, give or take. (This is still a little too big for comfort. There were only about 30 of us when I started attending, which was very shortly after I moved here; at that size, you know everyone. With 150 people, you don't.) However, due to the nature of the area, the demographic is pretty wildly skewed. I'm one of a mere handful of over-60s, and there's a huge number of young families, so I should think about a third of the congregation is under 18... and people are still having babies at a rate of knots.
Originally, when someone in the church had a baby, I'd knit them a baby jumper. I am still doing that, but it is extremely hard to keep up, for several reasons. Partly there's the simple fact that there are so many people I don't know all of them... and partly it's not always easy to tell when someone's pregnant.
About a year ago, for instance, there were R and P, who both got pregnant at around the same time. I didn't initially know in either case, but after a while I began to wonder about P, and as it happens she's the daughter-in-law of the friend I have lunch with on Thursdays, so I asked her. And, yes, indeed, P was pregnant, so I started knitting. About a week after I found out, it suddenly became very obvious indeed; there are some people who barely show for quite a while and then they balloon.
I was still knitting the jumper for P's baby when I noticed (at the Christmas service, I think it was) that R looked as if she might be pregnant; and I saw her husband, so I asked him, and he said, yes, she was. So I asked him when it was due, and he said "a week tomorrow". I was stunned; from the look of her, I'd been expecting him to say "about the end of April". So I said, right, I'd knit, but there was a queue... anyway, P, who'd been due first, was slightly late, and R was slightly early, so I should probably have done them the other way round, but you really never know with babies. P got the jumper before the baby arrived, and R slightly after.
This time it's little Micah's mother. Little Micah is just over a year old (about a year and two to three months, from memory), and knitting his jumper was free from complications because it was obvious fairly early on that he was on the way. But little Micah is about to have a brand new sibling, and it's been pretty much the same as it was with P; I did vaguely wonder the other week, but it wasn't obvious till Sunday just gone. At which point Micah's dad happened to wander past me, and I asked when the new one was due, and he said Friday week. Whoops. OK. Time to get out the needles in a hurry. (And I absolutely cannot recall which style I knitted for Micah, so I just hope I haven't picked the same one again.)
Well, if there's one thing I've learnt from all this, it's that there's no such thing as a typical pregnancy. Even so... everyone knows I knit baby jumpers. Maybe they could consider telling me when they're expecting? :-)
Originally, when someone in the church had a baby, I'd knit them a baby jumper. I am still doing that, but it is extremely hard to keep up, for several reasons. Partly there's the simple fact that there are so many people I don't know all of them... and partly it's not always easy to tell when someone's pregnant.
About a year ago, for instance, there were R and P, who both got pregnant at around the same time. I didn't initially know in either case, but after a while I began to wonder about P, and as it happens she's the daughter-in-law of the friend I have lunch with on Thursdays, so I asked her. And, yes, indeed, P was pregnant, so I started knitting. About a week after I found out, it suddenly became very obvious indeed; there are some people who barely show for quite a while and then they balloon.
I was still knitting the jumper for P's baby when I noticed (at the Christmas service, I think it was) that R looked as if she might be pregnant; and I saw her husband, so I asked him, and he said, yes, she was. So I asked him when it was due, and he said "a week tomorrow". I was stunned; from the look of her, I'd been expecting him to say "about the end of April". So I said, right, I'd knit, but there was a queue... anyway, P, who'd been due first, was slightly late, and R was slightly early, so I should probably have done them the other way round, but you really never know with babies. P got the jumper before the baby arrived, and R slightly after.
This time it's little Micah's mother. Little Micah is just over a year old (about a year and two to three months, from memory), and knitting his jumper was free from complications because it was obvious fairly early on that he was on the way. But little Micah is about to have a brand new sibling, and it's been pretty much the same as it was with P; I did vaguely wonder the other week, but it wasn't obvious till Sunday just gone. At which point Micah's dad happened to wander past me, and I asked when the new one was due, and he said Friday week. Whoops. OK. Time to get out the needles in a hurry. (And I absolutely cannot recall which style I knitted for Micah, so I just hope I haven't picked the same one again.)
Well, if there's one thing I've learnt from all this, it's that there's no such thing as a typical pregnancy. Even so... everyone knows I knit baby jumpers. Maybe they could consider telling me when they're expecting? :-)
