Since daylight savings time, we have not been sleeping through the night again. At the three a.m. wake-up call (and sometimes, that's the third wake-up call of the night) I do my Nancy Kerrigan, clutching at my knees and howling, "Why??? Why???" into the darkness. (I don't know why everyone made so much fun of N.K. for doing that; I do it quite regularly for far, far lesser catastrophes, and even then it feels like I could still stand to dial it up a notch or two.) Like clockwork (ha ha), our nighttime routine got garage-saled — parts and pieces everywhere, everywhere — on the night we turned the clocks forward, and has yet to be cleaned up. We are scrambling. As everyone says, this too shall pass, so I don't worry. But I am tired. I can't tell you one thing I've had for dinner (let alone made for dinner) in the past week (aside from the Irish soda bread, corned beef, and cabbage [and apple pie Andy made for Pi Day, 3/14]) though I know we ate. I can't remember where we went or what we did, though I think it was fun. The days sort of pass in bright, breezy, flower-sprinkled blurs. The yard is sunken and scuzzy, the sidewalks wet, the stroller wheels caked in mud and petals. In a fit of nostalgia, I buy Crabtree & Evelyn Spring Rain shower gel and some hyacinth oil. I pre-wash fabrics and plan spring dresses for me and for Mimi, having gotten rid of nearly everything in my closet recently, leaving only two new pairs of pajama-jeans, five old pairs of knit pants from Target that are supposed to be actual pajamas, eight variations of the same Dansko clog, and fourteen navy-striped long-sleeved t-shirts. Uuuuugh. Turns out I wasn't actually wearing anything else in my closet. In my head, I don't dress like my junior-high volleyball coach but like a Bloomsbury poet, all Liberty smock tops with bell sleeves and big pockets holding my garden pruners, ready to clip off frothy cones of lilac blossoms shining with raindrops. Or like Jane Birkin in a peasant dress and market bag. Or Tasha Tudor in a calico apron and Gunne Sax skirt. I need new clothes so bad.
I do know that we got some flowers (from one of my favorite nurseries, Cornell Farms) on the weekend and planted them in the front porch pots with help from our little flower girl. Clover's incredulous expression — she votes "no confidence" daily in our ability to successfully wrangle Amelia — is typical. I see that face several dozen times a day. She thinks we are quite incompetent. And Amelia did fall down on Friday afternoon and smash her lip on the floor. There was a big fat lip and a lot of tears (and baby crying always means dog howling at the same time — the cacophony of them plaintively wailing in stereo is seriously deafening). But Amelia gets over stuff so quickly (faster than Clover). It's inspiring. So the porch looks better, the lip looks better, and we'll probably uncover the back yard furniture today. That's my "confidence" vote for you, spring! Bringing out the pillows.
In the studio, the kits continue to come together, and concurrently, I'm having a new logo designed and new web site built. I know. It's a big project and we've been working on it for a few months now. We just finalized the logo this week. It's so pretty. I love doing stuff like this, but it's nervewracking, too. I care so much and drive everyone insane. I have a vision for things but can't do them myself. I'm planning on having the new web site finished at the same time that the new patterns/kits — for four new animals (kitters, doe, mousie, and fox) and their clothing, which is all interchangeable between animals — done sometime toward the end of May. That's the plan!
Grandma Paulson comes from Chicago for a visit this weekend. Andy and I talked this morning about going to a movie! I think it has to be The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's been a year and a half since we went to a movie. Hot popcorn! Giant sodas! Movie trailers! No cell phones! People do this!!! It's really quite thrilling. Ohmigosh. I can't wait.
