Maddie B-day 2009

I found this post from 2009 on my hard drive while I cleaned up files on our drive to Cedar City.

 

It isn't like I didn't make a cake for Maddie's birthday.  It's just that her birthday was on the first day of Joy School.  And I taught.  And it was a lot of work to get all the supplies ready for the entire year and organized.  And I was still figuring out how to juggle kindergarten bus stop pickups and infant nap time.  I made the cake.  The day before in fact.  I just didn't get it frosted.  Or decorated.  I suppose my desire to be a cake decorator has lead to high expectations of myself.  I wanted to try a new medium.  Fondant.  She wanted a princess castle.  Perfect match.  Maddie's low expectations - Simple design - My zero skills with fondant.

 

Turns out the box of fondant scared me.  In fact it's still sitting on the counter today all the way in November.  Long past the day I had to throw out the original birthday cake because it was covered in mold in the giant cake Tupperware that had to be decontaminated for bio hazard reasons.  Long past the time I made a second cake, frosted it in plain white and shook a plastic container of colored sugar sprinkles across the top and drew a little "3" with black icing.  She had been asking and mentioned twice that she didn't get a cake for her birthday.  Yeah, she's old enough I can't fudge stuff anymore.

 

So a mere five weeks late, she asked at a time I didn't have anything completely pressing that needed attention or the world would end.  When she asked why she didn't get a cake for the third time I dropped everything and said, "Let's make your birthday cake together right now!"  The smile stretched from ear to ear and maybe even a little farther.  She didn't care that it wasn't her birthday.  She didn't care that I was no longer under the delusion of making a gorgeous princess castle sculpted with fondant.  She just knew that I did love her enough to make her a cake.  She lasted all of thirty seconds in her helping, but we had cake that night.  She felt like a million bucks.

 

Just to set the record straight before I start getting hate mail, we did celebrate her birthday.  We had a party at preschool that day.  I made cupcakes to her exacting demands on decorations.  We sang and had fun together.  Brian came home from work a little early so I we could go to Chuck E. Cheese and live it up.  She had a blast and by the time we got back to the house it was all I could do to crawl into bed with the flu.  You know you feel bad when you are standing at Chuck E. Cheese and want to lay down on the greasy bench and sleep as tears start to slip down your face from the body aches.  I couldn't have eaten cake that day anyway.  So we did celebrate.  I gave it all I had.  She just really, really needed a cake.  And a cake she got...five weeks late.