The Baby’s birthday party cake was very nearly a total failure. We used two boxes of gluten-free cake mix in a bundt cake pan and the cake ended up having very little height – Barbie looked like she was standing in a knee-high inner tube when we experimentally stood her in the center. The kids went rummaging through the giant bin of Barbies for another victim, rejecting the idea of using Barbie’s baby "sister" – yeah, RIGHT, Barbie – and finally settling on a forgotten doll from the Madeline series, bought several years ago when I was idealistic about keeping Barbie out of my house and almost immediately discarded by The Girl.
But look! Now she’s having her moment of antebellum cake glory, the star – for one day – of the show:
My husband assembled and decorated the cake, carefully icing on little shoulder straps because, as he said, strapless dresses are just inappropriate on dolls that young. He’s a good sport. He also put all of those little doohickies on the cake with TWEEZERS.
I think someone trimmed that doll’s bangs at some point.
The Baby had one guest although we’d invited two others but one was out of town and one woke up sick on the day of the party, which is the peril of being a very young kid – you’re at the whim of parents’ travel schedules and/or the very young’s propensity for catching every thing that comes along.
My husband spent the whole party hanging out in the kitchen with this gorgeous thing:
I’d have bugged him about it but a) he HAD spent all morning making that beautiful cake and b) he was making mochachinos for me and my friend, who brought her princess-dress-clad daughter to the party while wearing a lavender bridesmaid’s dress and big fuchsia Scarlet O’Hara hat herself, awesomely enough. That kind of sartorial bravery demands a special coffee, I think.
When I told him that Cuisinart was sending me an expresso maker, he just about cried. I think he’s generally pretty happy that he married me – or at least he’s resigned to it – but in that moment, you could tell that he felt like our marriage was a VERY good idea. And now he spends his weekends making us high octane coffee drinks, which is a pretty excellent thing to do on a sleepy Sunday.
And then The Baby blew out her birthday candles before we finished singing Happy Birthday, before I had a chance to get the cake over to her side of the table, looking suddenly so much older in her party dress and fancy ponytail, this suddenly big girl eager for cake and wishes and fun with friends.
Now I have exactly one week to catch my breath before starting all of this over again with The Girl, this ridiculous sugary extravagance that says the same simple thing every year – oh, we are so very, very happy to have you, our blessings, our children.