Matthew Monday: Laura's Blanket

I heard from a friend I hadn't had contact with for over a year last week.  The occasion was that her contact list in her email account was hacked and everyone on the list was given one of those spam messages.  I didn't open the message since a similar thing had been done to my contact list a year or so ago, and I recognized immediately what happened.  But then Laura followed up with a note to everyone on her list informing them of the issue.  I replied and we had a nice little conversation.

Which reminded me of the extraordinary kind gift Laura sent Matthew shortly after we had him home.  Laura knitted this beautiful wool blanket for Matthew.  Here are a couple of pictures from October 3, 2010 when Matthew was 13 months old.

 

 

Laura included a nice letter to Matthew in the box explaining all the different images on the blanket.  It's got horses and trains and elephants and hearts, but on the bottom you see three flags: that of Khazakstan, representing Matthew's birth nation, the United States, representing his new home nation, and Italy, representing my ethnicity and family name. 

 

 

Isn't it beautiful?  And Laura isn't some older woman who's been knitting for fifty years.  Laura was at the time in her early twenties and working on her PhD.  I am grateful she found the time to do this.  We're still using that blanket these past cold nights.