Alex-15 months old
Yesterday we celebrated Alex's 5th birthday with our families. Alex turned five on December 27th, but things had been so crazy that we decided to wait until January to celebrate. Waiting to have his party also provided some space between Christmas and the birthday party, which was nice. Alex was constantly asking about his party; he was very excited about it. Jacob and I had these plans in our heads for how it would be but reality never turns out the way we imagine it will--we encountered just about every stupid little problem you could think of while getting ready for this party. The biggest problem for me was the cake; I made the mistake of waiting until the last minute to get a cake box and make the birthday cake, so of course no one had the cake box in the size I needed. That was a frustrating problem but not the end of the world, necessarily, because I had already baked the cake. So, I decided to just leave it in the cake pan, put the lid on it, and stick it in the fridge to decorate the next morning before the party. Isn't it funny when things are so busy that you don't stop to really think things through? Saturday rolled around and we spent our morning cleaning and moving furniture to make room for the party guests. Once that was finished, I pulled out the cake to decorate it. I put the cardboard sheet on the pan and flipped it over to get the cake out of the pan. It, of course, refused to budge. I remember thinking that I wasn't surprised because it had sat in the fridge for almost 24 hours. The cake and the pan had become good friends in that time and the cake refused to be separated from its friend, the pan. Things were already stressful and not being able to get my child's cake out of the pan sent me over the edge. I kid you not. I went from sane to crazy in about a second. (You can ask Jacob!) I started crying and talking about how I was going to have to go to the store to get what I needed to start all over on another cake. Jacob asked why I would have to do that. I started blubbering about how the cake was ruined and I couldn't get it out of the pan. Jacob got it out but it broke into two pieces during the process. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown--OVER A CAKE! I started crying again and talking about how the cake was going to look stupid. Jacob told me that it would look fine and Alex would be happy with it because he is only five years old and is more interested in his presents than a cake. Jacob put the cake together on the board for me and I started icing it. That went fine for about two minutes and then I ran out of icing. I know females can be dramatic from time to time but this cake was making me crazy. Every little inconvenience you could imagine appeared. So, I started freaking out again because I was out of icing. I quickly grabbed the ingredients to make more, but was short 4 cups of sugar. By this point I didn't care. I used what I had and made the icing which was runny because it was shy 4 cups of sugar. I put it in the fridge for a bit to thicken it up some. Then, I iced the cake. The icing was thin and runny and I remember thinking that it was the ugliest cake I had ever made. I ALWAYS make my boys' birthday cakes and most of the time I am happy with how they turn out but I was not happy with this cake. I hated this cake. I was glad it was going to be eaten--it served it right!! I was more concerned with what everyone else was going to think about the cake than what Alex was going to think. I finished decorating the cake and then I asked Alex if he wanted to put the Ben 10 cake toppers on. He excitedly ran to the kitchen and I let him put them wherever he wanted on his cake. After he put Ben 10 and the aliens on his cake he stood back, looked at it, and smiled. He said, "That is a really cool cake, Mom!" I said, "You like it?" He said, "Yeah, it's really cool. I like the melting alien icing!" He hugged me and said, "Thank you for making my happy birthday cake!" That was when I realized that I had lost my mind and stressed over this cake for nothing. It didn't matter what everyone else thought. It mattered what Alex thought. I made the cake for him. It was about him--it was his day. After that people started arriving and my stress level quickly went down and we just started having fun. We made green Ben 10 punch and the boys ran around with Ben 10 masks playing games. We tossed balloons in the air and played the arcade game. It was a lot of fun. We sang Happy Birthday to Alex and he blew out his candles. We had cake and ice cream and then he opened his gifts. Every time I looked at him he was smiling. He had a blast and that was what really mattered. Last night as I was tucking him into bed he thanked me again for his cake and his party. I asked if he had fun and he smiled and nodded. It occurred to me that we worry and stress over stupid things sometimes. Hopefully when Logan's birthday comes in April I won't fight with his birthday cake! Only time will tell, though . . .
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