CAKE!

I recently read this post by Mama Watters and thought I might take a little inspiration for my husband’s birthday this year. My daughter is pretty focused when it comes to cake, it’s her favorite food item and she talks about it A LOT. So I thought giving her a chance to decorate a cake for daddy’s birthday might be just the sort of activity she would enjoy. 

We made a ‘daddy’ garland together earlier in the week which turned out to be a very relaxing way to spend the afternoon together. But Sunday morning, I guess we just caught her on the wrong day. 

Her first word of the morning was; ‘cake’. I tried to cover her relentless asking by telling my hubby she just wanted pancakes and convinced him to stay in bed. Did I mention it was meant to be a surprise? She yelled ‘CAKE!’ all the way down stairs getting more and more excited the closer we got to the kitchen.  I spent a few minutes convincing her she needed breakfast first, set her up in the high chair, then set out our cake decorating station and hung the bunting.  

Come time to decorate the cake the poor girl just about had a melt down when I placed the store bought sponge cake in front of her and she realized she wasn't just allowed to just dig in. Second meltdown attempt happened as I was desperately trying to smear icing on the top as quickly as I could; she asked if the cake was hers and her fool of a mother said, ‘no honey, this is Daddy’s cake’. Fool. Another meltdown.

The decorating itself was almost fun. She took to it like a pro, although she did take a bite out of several lollies before adorning the cake with the half eaten goodies. We had another melt down when we were finished and I took the cake off her. And another on the stair well when we tried to go up to wake daddy- which meant walking in the opposite direction to the cake. Sigh. You made it look so easy Mama Watters. 

All that aside, daddy loved his cake and afterward we all hopped in the car and headed off to the beach for a coffee and to run off the morning’s sugar. Sadly we had a few more mini melt downs at the beach; the seagull was too close, she didn't want her hat on, she wanted her hat on, mummy forgot her shoes, mummy forgot to order her a baby chino (although daddy forgot to order mummy something to eat and mummy felt like having a bit of a meltdown herself- so I can understand that one) and we decided to call it quits early and head home. Not surprisingly the wee one fell asleep early AND slept long (which was perhaps the best present of the day). Not surprisingly mummy will probably attempt to do it all over again next year. Because she is a little bit foolish like that.