Triumph of the cake

Yesterday was Action Hero's third birthday. Since Boy Wonder's birthday is in three weeks, Easter is next Sunday, and our family schedule has been JUST A BIT thrown off lately, we are celebrating both boys' birthdays AND Easter on, well, Easter. So we had a low-key little celebration here yesterday, for which I baked a cake.

Boy Wonder, who had already displayed a small (GIANT) hint of jealousy that Action Hero had presents and he didn't, saw me begin to mix the cake. "But I wanted a Transformers cake," he said, a whine creeping into his voice.

"Well, I'm sure you do want one. But it's Action Hero's birthday, not yours. And it's a yellow vanilla cake, not chocolate. You like vanilla."

"I will NOT like it! I won't eat it. I will just have fruit punch for dessert tonight." And off he went, probably to dream of a Transformer cake and birthday presents just for him.

I continued baking, and set the cake aside to cool. Several hours later, when it was time for frosting, I got a bit carried away with the food coloring, making the filling between layers light purple and the top layer of frosting sky blue. (This seemed like it would be pretty jazzy, what with the yellow cake.) Then I put Smarties candies on top, shaped like a smiley face. Then I put three big birthday candles in the cake, and summoned everyone (well, my dynamic duo, Dragon, and my dad)for the birthday song.

It was a pretty hokey-looking cake, but I had fun. And, as it turned out, so did everyone else involved. Action Hero did a great job of blowing out the candles, and was very, very pleased with the smiley face. Overall, he was so pleased with the cake that he ate three pieces of it...and so did Boy Wonder, having apparently forgotten his earlier vow to stick to fruit punch. We were all quite astonished at their cake-eating prowess.

I gave them some cake for breakfast this morning, and they enjoyed that too. But my favorite moment of the day came in the car, after picking up Boy Wonder but before picking up Action Hero.

"Mom? What kind of cake do I want for my birthday?"

"I don't know, what kind of cake do you want? We can go to the grocery store and look in the book this weekend."

"No! I want a YELLOW cake! Only I don't like the blue and purple frosting. I want green frosting on top. And yellow in the middle. Can you do that? And I don't want the Smarties. Can you put Sweet Tarts on it instead? And there will be six candles, three red and three blue."

I was stunned. "You mean...you want me to make your cake? You don't want to get one at the grocery store?"

"Yeah! Don't forget about the Sweet Tarts, okay?"

TAKE THAT, OPTIMUS PRIME.

Blank. Verse.

I always thought her hands were so elegant
(much more so than mine)
with long slender fingers
and nails that actually grew nicely
instead of breaking every fifteen seconds
and then they were skeletal and shaky
but somehow more elegant than ever

He put on his coat to leave, and she said,
Where are you going?
And he said, The gra-...uh. Where you'll be b-...
And finally he simply said, Forest Home
(and she knew what he meant,
but still it was easier not to actually say it)

and my father said, Will Dragon buy a suit?
I hope not, because I don't even have one
and I don't know what I will wear
she always picked out my ties
and right now I can't even decide whether or not to
make a pot of coffee

I wanted to take him home and
tuck him into bed and tell him it would be all right
but I couldn't
because I knew
and then
I wanted to lift her out of the bed
and carry her to the sun room
so she could look out the window
and maybe smile, just one more time

and my grandmother said, I wish I could take her place
I wish I could crawl in that bed instead

and evemtually my cell phone rang

and surely by now you will have realized
that this is all in the past tense

and that's because my mother died today>

and I have had way too much wine
so I'm posting this lousy poem
instead of a coherent post