Birthday Cake Season

It’s Birthday season in our house. Mike, Ax, and I all have birthdays coming up. My mom just had a birthday, and my sister Delish, the young, hot one who dances and doesn’t have a kid yet who’s visiting this weekend, she has a birthday really soon too. Plus her first wedding anniversary with Uncle D. Bottom line: There’s a lot of cake coming up. We told Ax a while back that processed sugar was for Sunday chocolate chip waffles and special occasions like birthday parties. So he’s been planning the cakes in his future pretty carefully.

Mike is a little concerned that being so limiting is making him obsessed with sweets. I reminded him that Ax had a popsicle every day at camp the last two weeks and maybe that was making him obsessed with sweets.

I just wish they didn’t have all that candy junk at kid eye level at the supermarket check out. It makes food shopping at the regular market such a gauntlet. Anyway, the conversations at our house run like this lately:

“Daddy, what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?”

“German chocolate cake.”

“And what icing?”

“Chocolate. What kind of cake would you like, Ax?”

“A ginormous cake.”

“Ahh. What flavor?”

“A ginormous chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a helicopter.”

“Ok.”

And then they both get this dreamy happy look on their faces contemplating cakes. Personally, I like a fruit tart better than cake. I really do. Berries and whipped cream is my idea of the perfect treat. I could have those for my birthday. But I’ll get a cake too.

This family life has done something weird to me where even my birthday will be more fun to celebrate in a way that’s fun for my dudes. I could label it co-dependence, or growing up, or not label it at all but accept it and allow myself to enjoy what I really enjoy these days, which a lot of the time is making them happy. Even though I’m not a cake person, I’m going to enjoy the birthday cake exception too.