My mom gave Maren this book for her birthday this year.
It’s a sweet little book, and Maren loves the repetitiveness of it as well as seeing familiar animals do slightly off kilter things. The enthusiastic HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! at the end is also much-loved. What kid doesn’t like to shout? 
Maren also has a doll. On her first birthday, Hayley arrived with wild hair and was happily ignored by Maren for the next six months. And then, slowly, Hayley became a sort of fixture in Maren’s life. Hayley had to come for car rides. She had to ride in the grocery cart. When Nate was born, I got Maren her own sling, and now Hayley rides in her sling to go to the playground, the store, friends’ houses, and anywhere else we go.
Today, as we read the “Birthday Book”for the umpteenth time, I asked her when Hayley’s birthday is. Today seemed like as good a day as any. Nate cooperated absolutely beautifully, staying sweetly asleep long enough for us to read the book, and make a birthday cake. The recipe is on the last page of the book.
As we were mixing it up, I realized that I’ve never made a plain old cake before. I have a chocolate cake recipe I use pretty frequently (it’s called Emergency Chocolate Cake, and we have “emergencies” fairly frequently), but I realized I have otherwise never made a from scratch cake. Oddly. This one turned out pretty well. We cut the sugar a fair bit, but it still turned out almost too sweet. I made a really lemony glaze for it, and topped it with a few raspberries from the freezer, and it mostly evened out. Note to self: if you want to get the cake out of the pan, greasing said pan would be recommended.
Nate conveniently saved his waking up for about four seconds after the cake went in to the oven. We had one of those delicious wake up cuddles, and then I popped him in to the Jolly Jumper while Maren and I sprawled on the floor in front of him to make Hayley a birthday card. And then we had cake. With a candle in it for Hayley. I sang Happy Birthday all by myself, because Maren was suddenly struck by shyness, which was a bit of a puzzle given our complete lack of an audience. I forgot about pictures until after the main event, but you get the idea.
It was fun. And easy. We spent the whole day at home alone together, my two little people and I, and it was perfectly lovely. Any excuse for a cake! Sometimes, when Two (years) is biting my butt, and the tedium of day-to-day threatens to do me in (how many times can you wash the same dish or vacuum the same floor?), I feel like a cruddy parent wasting my life as an at home mom. And sometimes, it is ridiculously easy to enjoy a day doing something I would never otherwise get the opportunity to do. Sometimes I remember how lucky I am.
Also, when your child dresses like this:
how do you not giggle and give that cute little bum a tap? (I grew up in a bum-tapping household. They were called Love Taps. Please note that they’re not at all the same thing as slaps or spanks, or anything of the sort!)
And now, both kiddos are in bed, and that cake is definitely calling my name!
So cute! That goes perfectly with what I wrote about yesterday… perhaps you could write part three for me?!
Well done, mama!