The Children Poncho

Growing up on the eastern seaboard, I had to deal with a lot of rain. Almost everyone I know had a children poncho as a kid, and it was necessary. Without a big child raincoat – the bright yellow kind that was heavy, sweaty, and bulky – you would get soaked to the bone. Although all of the parents got their children ponchos, almost none of the kids liked them. They were so uncomfortable and sweaty that the kids would take them off whenever they were out of sight of their parents. Nonetheless, wearing a children poncho was necessary. Those East Coast storms and those East Coast flu’s were a double whammy. If you were exposed to one, you would definitely catch the other.

As a matter of fact, I had two children’s ponchos as a kid. The children poncho that I was forced to wear most of the time – the one that I hated – was my raincoat. The other children poncho, however, was magnificent. As a family bonding project, my parents got a make your own children poncho kit from a catalog. When we first got the children poncho kit, it seemed almost impossible. None of us knew how to knit, but it required knitting at every step. How were we going to make it? Nevertheless, it turned out to be easier than I thought. It took a tremendous amount of time, but once you learn the essential knitting stitches, it is easy.

Once we finished that children poncho, I could not be parted from it. At first, my parents thought it was adorable. I would go everywhere in that childrens poncho, wearing it like it was a security blanket. It was warm and soft, and I was the only one in the school who had one! I felt so special and important in that poncho children that I never wanted to take it off. My parents actually had to bribe me to take off the poncho!

To be honest, I thought I had lost it until I discovered it while going through my attic recently. There it was, in pristine shape, in the box it had been sitting in since I was a kid. Although the children poncho smelled a little bit – I never washed it, and would refuse to take it off for weeks at a time – it was still quite serviceable. Once I washed it an cleaned it up, it was ready to pass on to my kid.