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.