Tag Archives: parties

So it was my birthday last weekend. Don’t worry if you didn’t send a card. I’m old enough that I don’t really care about that anymore. I just would like my husband to buy me a present (check!) and to eat whatever I want (check!). I did forget to pre-order for a healthy child though…

My daughter woke up on my birthday with a huge fever and no desire to do anything but sleep, nurse, whine, and cling to me. It was about 92 F outside and the humidity of a jungle. We left the apartment to find air-conditioning at the bookstore downtown, but all my kid wanted to do was sleep on my shoulder. There was a lot of walking around inside while she slept. She was better the next day, so I suspect she had way too much sun/not enough water the day before when we were outside at two different picnics.

I remember really liking my birthday. I don’t know when that ended. Sometime in my mid-twenties? I think I turned 26 and was thinking “okay, I can stop now.” But then 27 showed up, then 28… Then, you just try to turn 30 without weeping. I was pregnant and very distracted with moving/baby showering/partying/going to cool things like a Lady Gaga concert. It’s probably the best way to turn 30, if you ask me. You almost don’t even notice! But since then, birthdays are just a yearly reminder that I’m not accomplishing very much, that the clock is ticking, that I’m probably going to need that botox sooner rather than later.

As much as I’m growing to dread my own birthday, I have this cute little girl whose birthday I love and is conveniently about 6 weeks after my own. Her party last year was fabulous, all miniature foods and drinks, little black dresses, and cocktails. Yes, I had a cocktail party for my 1 year old. No, she did not drink any of them. Calm down.

Her second birthday party is set to be pretty awesome. I can’t wait! I have a lot to do before then, especially the week before, but I’m excited. She will be so much more aware of the festivities this year, that will be nice. The party is mostly planned out in my head, it’s all execution at this point. I have a pinterest board… my husband some would say I go too far, but I do routinely stop myself from trying to pretty interesting things, so I DO have some sense of proportion. I have, this year, decided against adding turrets to the top of my mother’s house (venue) to make it look more like Churchill Downs. You know, things like that.

There is of course the cake. I am no cake maker, I have no formal pastry experience, but I do like a baking challenge. I am going to try to make a cool layer cake with buttercream frosting. I have tested a few recipes and have yet to settle on one. You only get one Second Birthday cake, so you know it has to be perfect. My daughter hasn’t yet determined what HER cake flavor is. Mine is carrot cake, not because carrot cake is my favorite, though I do like it. It’s carrot because when I was a kid, that’s what I had a few times and so I just asked for it every year after that. I had no idea that carrot cake and thus cream cheese frosting was really hard to assemble in the high heat of summer. My mom’s friend and neighbor usually made my cake in the walk-in cooler at her work. Someone should have told me; I would have been fine with chocolate! But that’s what happened, and now my birthday cake is carrot.

Someday my kid will have her own flavor, even though I would like not to have aged in the meantime, I can’t wait to find out what it is. I’m hoping for chocolate raspberry.