Forgotten Sleep

When I got married, I was making a huge compromise. No, not a compromise by marrying Loving Husband. That was, and still is, wonderful. The big concession on my part was that we were married on my 25th birthday. So, I quickly had to come to terms with knowing that my birthday was never going to be solely about me ever again. But, that’s okay — Loving Husband and I agreed that the mornings would be my birthday, and the evenings would be our anniversary.

This was, of course, before we had children. Big Girl is finally beginning to understand what a birthday is. So, whenever someone has theirs — be it Loving Husband, Mimi, Papa, or, today, me, — she is convinced that it is actually her birthday. If you try to explain that her birthday is still several months away, it amounts to telling her that Dora has gone off the air and she can ever again eat a chocolate chip cookie. You get the picture.

Now, she did wish me Happy Birthday a few times, and even tried singing it over the monitor to me when she was supposed to be sleeping (she’s getting very clever in her attempts to avoid naps), but she was still convinced that today was, in fact, her special day. So convinced, as it seems, that she thought she could lay sole claim to my birthday cake.

Loving Husband — who, let’s be clear, does not cook or bake — was a champion today. He took Big Girl into the kitchen and baked a cake with her. They mixed, they poured, they slid the cake pans into the oven. It was all so sweet and perfect that I took pictures.

When the time came to ice the cake, though, Big Girl was intent on doing it her own way. Often when I bake with her, she will stick her hands into the batter or stir too hard and sling some flour on the counter. Now, she was armed with a knife, and Loving Husband was giving her huge swaths of frosting to slather all over my cake. She did manage to get some chocolate icing on the cake, but a good deal of it ended up in her mouth as she licked in off the knife and, then, proceeded to smear the rest of the non-licked-off icing onto the cake. But, even that wasn’t enough. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d actually stuck her fingers into the cake, leaving little holes all along the top and edges.

I have not yet tasted this cake, but I am about to. Still, with all the little holes running all over the place, my brain can’t help but envision that the cake has worms.