I have been a mom for five years. That’s longer than high school. Longer than college. Longer than almost every job I ever had. Every day it changes me forever. Every day surprises me. Every day challenges me. Every day amazes me. I am so, so fortunate to be your mom.
I am awed. Awed by the greatness. The beauty. The magic.
I am humbled. I am blessed. Let’s hear it for another year!
Love,
Mommy
So, raise your hand if you are surprised that this guy not only insisted we color coordinate the contents of the treat bags, he also insisted I preserve the original hem when I shortened the t-shirt for his Sam the Library Mouse costume.
Yeah, me neither.
On an only slightly related note, I have been looking at Google analytics, and I have to say something. If you are one of the surprisingly many people who came here seeking birthday cake decorating ideas… I’m very, very sorry. And if you are the person who was looking for Thomas the Train Toast… Wow. Is that a thing?
Creativity: The ultimate expansion set.
Ian: Mommy, what is this dog’s name?
Me: It says Buddy.
Ian: Why is this dog’s name Buddy?
Me: I don’t know. I would have named him “Salt,” since there’s one named “Pepper.”
Ian: Salt. His name is Salt. This says Salt.
Me: No, it says “Buddy.” If it said Salt, there’d be an “S.”
Ian: But it says “Buddy,” because there’s a “B.”
Today we celebrate FOUR WONDERFUL YEARS!
Hey Ian! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you... Happy birthday big brother... happy birthday to you!
Green French Toast. Yes, that is what we had for breakfast on Ian’s birthday. Your color display is not off. Why you ask? Well, let me begin at the beginning.
First of all, it seems we have now entered an era where cake is no longer exciting in and of itself. Or so I came to understand on Tuesday, when Ian informed me that “Mommy, I want a train cake for my birthday.” And rue the day that I decided to do a Google Image Search for ideas with him in the room.
Now, if you’ve ever eaten cake around here, you’ll have noticed that although I strive for a taste aesthetic that is nothing short of (with apologies) orgasmic, the appearance of said cakes is distinctly… homey. I try to do a nice presentation. I apply whatever treatment I’ve come up with tidily and, I hope, competently. And there it stops. I don’t own a pastry bag. I never aspired to own one. Because while I admire a fancy looking confection, they usually bore me when it comes to the eating. And I’m all about the eating. So please understand how appalled I was when my son looked over my shoulder and shouted, “I WANT THAT TRAIN CAKE FOR MY BIRTHDAY! I WANT THAT THOMAS CAKE!” Because he was looking at this cake:
Which is not merely rife with piped buttercream frosting. It also uses a kit I didn’t have time to order for said birthday. And, the clincher, the instructions for assembly include AIRBRUSHING the grass onto this cake. Sorry kid. Mommy has never airbrushed in her life, and while she’s delighted you are turning three (and by delighted I mean devastated that my baby is gone but proud of my big boy) she is not going to celebrate it by cramming to learn how to airbrush cakes.
The next day dawned and he was still talking about this cake. Time to gird my metaphorical loins and figure out a way to pull this off without the kit, without an airbrush, and without making and piping not one but FIVE colors of icing. A little more googling came up with a Thomas Carnival scene that I felt comfortable laminating and using as a backdrop, and a rootle through the train box pulled up one of Ian’s Thomas engines to grace the top of the cake. Now all I needed to do was figure out how to do a respectable job of icing the cake, when my last and only experience with piping frosting was a cooking class I took during the summer of, I believe, my sixth grade year. I created a distinctly diseased looking rose for the top. And the cake fell. So pardon me for not feeling that I should depend on THAT background for my one and only child’s birthday cake.
Thank goodness for my friend Casey, who is my polar opposite when it comes to baking. Not only is she willing to decorate cakes, she revels in it. And she pointed out that the tracks are just chocolate frosting. Which led me to the nearest grocery store where I found out that you can buy chocolate icing in a pouch with a nozzle, all ready to pipe. You just need a tip. You can also get white icing IN A CAN with a selection of tips. Who knew? So now I just needed grass.
Now, back to my philosophy of baking. People fall into two camps when it comes to icing. You have your “I eat sugar straight from the bowl” types who can’t get enough, and you have your scrapers who ask for a middle piece and push all the icing off before they eat their cake. I’m in the latter camp. So I’m completely against the standard buttercream icing that is normally used to decorate cakes. It’s a waste of food for me, because I’m putting it all down the garbage disposal. So I went through my cookbooks for some other kind of frosting I could dye green and came up with Fluffy White Frosting, which is a confection made from beaten egg whites and surprisingly little sugar. I thought it sounded perfect.
Come the night before Ian’s birthday and, what with wrapping the presents and a few other things that took me a little farther into the evening than I had originally planned, it was midnight by the time the cake was cool and I was ready to try my hand at an egg white frosting. Nothing daunted, I pulled out my mixing bowl, my hand mixer, the green food coloring, and the vanilla. I started cracking the eggs and separating them exactly as I learned in Home Ec all those years ago. And promptly broke a yolk into the bowl. This is when it dawned on me that midnight might not be the time. So I put the eggs, green food coloring and all, into a tupperware container in the fridge, made green buttercream frosting and iced that cake within an inch of its life. Then I stuck it in the freezer and went directly to bed. In the morning, I added a little milk to the failed attempt at frosting and there you have Green French Toast. Ian loved it. Actually, Ian loved the syrup, and would have been perfectly happy with cardboard if he was allowed to use it to eat syrup.
As for his cake, it turned out like this:
The cake itself was chocolate chip and quite good. The icing was exactly as disappointing as I expected. Ian apparently saw no difference between what he requested and what I actually did. Hooray for childhood.
http://www.bigtent.com/group/forum/message/30549052?ff=1
Here we are, on this, the third anniversary of Ian’s birth. Joys, in truth, never end.
but I’ve grasped what’s important about this birthday thing.
As we approach Ian’s first birthday on Wednesday, I am surprised (and if I’m honest, pleased) to tell you he isn’t really walking yet. He’s done three steps and that’s the limit- he’s busy breaking land speed records crawling after that. He is also making great progress on many other ongoing projects. For instance:
I wanna be a rock star!
Ian still loves music as much as he always has. Here he is at the Columbia Pike Blues Festival on Saturday, keeping the beat!
http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/BluesFestival?authkey=g9PErogty_Y
Project Choppers
Always an ambitious teether, Ian is working on some molars and possibly his incisors at the same time. I guess he wants to be able to eat the good stuff for his birthday. Here he is feeding himself with a fork: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/UsingAFork?authkey=xWJSbM_V93k
and a spoon: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/FeedingMyselfWithASpoon?authkey=saBWVS316wg
Architecture and Advanced Legos
Of course, anything you can bang, roll, or build with is now his favorite toy- that means that he and Grandpa have a GREAT time playing with blocks: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/Blocks530?authkey=Cb7co–V9Sk
And Legos: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/Legos529?authkey=1BzR7R9res0
SAT Vocab
Ian continues to add new words every day, with a focus mainly on naming and commanding his minions. “Mama” is well entrenched, “Dada” has become “Daddy,” and he’s still working on Grandma (Rama) and Grandpa (Raba.) He’s learned to point and say “more,” and his most recent accomplishments include “uh-oh,” “thirsty,” and “teddy.”
Facial Recognition
More minions- Ian has learned to identify people in pictures. He will point at photos of people he knows if you say their names.
In, out, open, shut
Ever fascinated by drawers, cupboards, and things on shelves, Ian has mastered trashing the house and is starting to work on putting things into, on, or under said drawers, cupboards, and shelves. Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered his opportunistic style of organizing things, so I do spend some time either frantically searching or perplexedly wondering if I’ve lost my mind.
Everest, here I come
I said he wasn’t walking (of course, we all know that, as my mother says, there is no walking, there is only running, but I digress)- I never said he wasn’t building his mobility skills. Ian has learned to climb the couch (yes, up the back too), understands how to turn around when we tell him to get down “feet first,” and climbs onto the fire place regularly. He also thinks it’s funny to climb partway up the stairs at Grandma’s house and then jump off. (Yes, we plan to invest in a set of shock paddles so we can restart my heart from time to time.)
I hope you are all well- obviously we are keeping happy, healthy, and busy here. I’d be hard pressed to tell you what is my favorite part of any day- they are all filled with joy from one end to the next. Please know that even though I may not write as often as I’d like, I think of you all often! One more album and then I’ll say goodbye. Here we all are walking by the Potomac yesterday afternoon: http://picasaweb.google.com/meghanegray/OronocoToTideLock?authkey=5g92dSwjGCo
Well, it turns out that that thing rattling my insides was indeed a baby, and not a boggart at all. Ian seems to have a definite opinion about everything. (It’s like he’s my son, or something.) When frustrated, he lets out a piercing shriek to inform the world that it must bend to his will before resuming his concentrated efforts at achievement. He makes the most thoughtful faces and has a habit of raising one index finger as though trying to get everyone’s attention for pronouncements of great import. He and I spent our time in the hospital reading Harry Potter, which hopefully balanced out his father reading to him about the rape and plunder committed by the conquering Roman army as commanded by Ceasar. He’s had a busy four days, what can I say.
My mother has stated that it is her unbiased opinion that, although there were a lot of babies at that hospital, ours is really the best one. Thanks to everyone for all your best wishes. We are excited to be home and I really am feeling very well, all things considered.
