We got to “K is for kiss.” “Kiss,” he said excitedly.

“Yes, that’s a mommy kissing a baby.” I pointed to a Marie Cassatt.

“Kiss!” I, of course, kissed him.

“Ike do you want to kiss me?” He did, but he doesn’t really know how to kiss anyone. Instead, he mashed his little toddler face against my check.

My mommy heart melted, and I kissed him again, then asked him if he wanted to try again. Solemnly, he put his hands on my cheeks, leaned in…

and bit my nose.

In brief: I want to use curtains as a closet door.  My closet is fairly wide, so the curtain rod will need multiple supports.  With traditional curtain rods, multiple supports mean the middle curtain panels are “stuck” between supports and can’t slide off to the sides.

I believe this curtain rod from IKEA will solve that problem.

Once you’ve decided to go to IKEA, you might as well go wild.  Ike likes our neighbor’s Junior Chair from IKEA, so I think I’ll get him one.  (Bonus: we’ll have four adult chairs again for when people come over.)

I plan on making a wall of picture frames, so these are a “yes!”.

I pretty much love the whole ANNAMOA line of fabric.

And if you’re going to IKEA, you’ve got to get some toys for your wee one.

So far I can see the very tips of the daffodils in front of the house starting to poke up.  Whether the daffodils I planted along the back fence will come up remains to be seen.

It might be that the front of the house is warmer with the sun reflecting off the brick.  Or it might be that Juno dug up the daffodils I planted in the backyard.  Here’s a tip, boys and girls: don’t fertilize your bulbs with bone meal when you have a dog. It turns out that dogs like to dig up things that smell like bones.  I know.  I was surprised too.

The photo above isn’t mine; it’s from richardthelandlord on Flickr.  I’m in Reno and I forgot to upload my crocus photo before I left.  But honestly, my crocus photos look like this.  As Tolstoy said, “All midsummer gardens are colorful in their own way, but March gardens all look the same.”  At least, I’m pretty sure Tolstoy said that.

What have I done so far?

• I decided to donate my wedding dress to charity.
• Hand washed all of my wool sweaters to store them for the summer.
• I found a dozen items in my closet that I no longer wear that are in resale condition, and I made an appointment to take them to a local consignment shop.
• I found another dozen items that are reusable but aren’t upscale enough for a consignment shop.  They’ll be headed for the Kiwanis Thrift Sale.
• I bought and hemmed curtains that will serve as my closet door.  (When we moved into our house, most of the closet doors had been removed.)

What’s left to do?

• Finish putting away the clothes I like and still wear.
• Hang the curtains.
• Drop off the clothes that will be sold or donated.
• I have a handful of nice winter clothes.  I need to decide whether to keep them to sell this fall or donate them now.

And as a reminder, this is what it looked like on Monday:

I know.  Nowhere to go but up.

Was I sad to see it go?  A little, maybe.  But it’s a polyester David’s Bridal dress.  It’s not heirloom quality.  Even if some as-yet-unconceived daughter wanted to wear a dress exactly the style mine was, it wouldn’t be worth wearing.

Donating a cheap wedding dress to charity involves a certain amount of suspended disbelief.  I pretend that my dress will be treasured and worn again by some other starry-eyed bride.  Not eventually turned into a Halloween costume.

Who would do that, you ask?  I’ll tell you who.

The theme of the costume party was “Lyric.”  From left to right: “It’s a nice day for a white wedding” (me), “Goody two shoes” and “My angel is the centerfold.”

Wedding photography by Julia MacInnis Photography.

To say that I need this is a gross understatement.  If they’re handing out a prize for “worst before picture,” it’s in the bag.

And yet, it’s the best time of year.  March is like the Thursday night of the year.  The entire spring and summer are full of potential.  This summer, we say, this summer we’ll grow all our vegetables and we’ll go to the zoo and we’ll go camping like we always mean to.  I’ll get great abs by bathing suit season.  We’ll finish all the home improvement projects we meant to finish last summer.  Etc, etc.

This time of year, everything is on the way up.  Including the temperature.

I love to cook but, oddly, I’ve never made pudding.  But I decided to cut down on processed food, so I thought: why not try it from scratch?  It was really easy and wow, was it a hit.

1. Find mittens.
2. Wrestle mittens onto toddler singing “thumb in the thumb place, fingers all together.”
3. Accept that the thumb will not be in the thumb place.
4. Find snow suit.
5. Wrestle toddler into snow suit.
6. Find boots.
7. Wrestle toddler into boots.

To get Juno ready to go outside you must:

1. Utter the word “outside” in any tone of voice, at any volume, even a whisper.