Children change you.

An example of this is the 25 amigurumi project I have embarked on. As of this afternoon, I have completed the second amigurumi in this 25 piece project.

Yesterday, (using Tamie Snow’s pattern, a 4.0 mm hook and Red Heart Super Saver light gray), I got this far with the koala-to-be:

Knowing that he often has definite ideas about names, I asked my youngest son what he thought I should name the koala once it was assembled, and without hesitation he determined that Leonard (after the koala in the Penguins of Madagascar franchise) would be perfect. So with my Clover bent-tipped needle in hand and a small pair of sharp scissors and a bag of polyester fiberfill at my side, I set to work shaping and assembling the koala parts I had amassed.

The result was, to my mind, quite satisfactory:

But the newly minted koala could not content himself with the one photo, and insisted that I get a second while he tumbled around the deck. Here he can be seen standing on his head:

I don’t know who I would be if I had not had my children, but I do know that I would be very different from the person that I have become under their tutelage and influence, and the irrepressible Leonard is just one example of how my children have shaped and formed me.