So, Noah turned four yesterday and I made a cake. He has asked for a Batman cake for months and months and so I mustered up my cakery skills and made this. And I am peeved. Because:
1. No one eats the cake part. Only the yellow icing which is made from a packet substance akin to building putty with a suspicious claggy chalky texture and no flavour. It is full of yellow food colouring and sugar so the kids will probably go blind or something with toxicity. The kind of toxicity that I have not only allowed, but I have positively encouraged. Am sure modern mothers are supposed to colour their icing with saffron and sweeten it with carrot juice, but Not I. Which makes me a bit of a bad mother on a smallish scale (although not if you were Gwyneth. If you were Gwyneth you would faint with the dreadfulness of it all).
2. Mark will not eat the cake part either because it ‘has no chocolate icing’, (whinge whinge). So he eats none of it at all. And yet, he asks for cake all the time. I think he loves the idea of having a wife who bakes. I also like the idea. But I am officially resigning from this calorific and oderous task whch results in cocoa everywhere and me all cranky and me eating cake at frequent intervals throughout the day just to finish it off. Thanks family, for your following-through of cake-related appreciation, and for helping me not get lardy.
Humph.
Aaaaannnnyway. Noah got to choose what he wanted to do on his fourth birthday. I was hoping for the puppet theatre on the canal in Maida Vale, or the Zoo, the movies, or Bramleys or even some swimming at the Porchester Center. But Noah wanted to blow bubbles in the garden. It was an extremely cost-effective option. And it involved a traipse across the road. Such a sweet kid.
Then we scoffed pancakes at Harlem (a little breakfast cocktail for me first, ahem) then bought policeman hats from the tourist shops along Queensway enroute to the pirate park. Then we had ice creams. It was lovely. Here are the boys after their bath in their hats, looking a little bit odd: Note the extremely cranky kid on the left. Not best pleased by the cosy photo op.
In other news, my parents arrived this morning and have won the children over with gifts and magic tricks involving false teeth. Custard tried to take his out too, and only gagged. That was kind of a low point. But so far, so good. Tomorrow we begin our galavanting – we plan to do the kind of stuff that I usually can’t do on my own owing to the clambering monkey-like children that are variously strapped to my back/head/ankles etc. For once, the adult:kid ratio will be even. They have been warned.
The Harridan 
Oh god woman – I love this blog.
Excellent photo of them in their hats. The grumpiness enhances the wonderfulness if anything.
So, are those tricks with actual false teeth? When I was little my gran used to make me laugh until I was almost sick just by taking her teeth out. She only had a fairly modest bridge, not the full plate, but I found it brilliantly funny. Almost as funny as when she put ice cubes down the back of my grandfather’s shirt. Probably nothing since has made me laugh so much.
I hope I haven’t intimidated you with how classy my family is and that.
PS. Is it wrong that I think the cake looks great? I feel you have fulfilled your remit.
Surely this is why we have multitudes of children? More cakes? More wobbly bits? Love to Ginger Jude and Ba-ruce.
Have fun with Ma and Pa!
Happy Birthday to beautiful Noah whom I can not believe is 4 yet can because he has 2 younger brothers, all of whom I have never met sob sob.
For William’s 7th birthday recently, when asked what shape cake he wanted, he said “just a round one”. WHAT? No SHAPE? I was traumatised. Eventually talked him into a number 7 covered with choc crackle spiders and iced webs. No one warns you that around 7 or 8 they STOP wanting shape cakes. It is like their childhood ends. (OK – a little dramatic, but still.) So revel in the shape cakeyness while you can.
(And Wilton icing gives you excellent colours, should anyone except me actually care.)
The man that bakes Sonshine’s birthday cakes made a great show of telling me that he imports the EXACT Disney colour scheme for his Winnie The Poo cake.
What he FAILED to tell me is that the reason he imports it is that most of the colours are banned in the UK.
I won’t begin to tell you the trouble with the Transformer cake – suffice to say the kids were blue and black around the mouth and needed peeled off the ceiling.
I call that a successful party btw.
Kids look as cute as buttons! Make most of blowing bubbles – it will be hiring the local swimming pool before you know it….
Ali x
Dear Punctured Bike, they most certainly are real false teeth. Dad got his out in Westfield, near the foodcourt. I am nearly immune to shame, but in this instance, I reddened spectacularly. Your family classier than mine, I expect. Once I poured water down my mother’s back and she punched me.
Crocheted Fedora – I have said hi to the mental parentals. they are lovely, although they are currently vomiting quite a lot. It is a house of germs, and stale cake. lovely pic you sent me!
Anya – Thanks for the birthday wishes. It is very dumb not knowing each other’s kids!
Cath – I am horrified it took me so long to start baking my terrible cakes. The kids are almost pathetically grateful. So sweet, so misguided.
Ali – It is always good to poison your kids. Makes them resilient, and able to handle disappointments, challenges, etc. And thanks – the kids are kind of cute, kind of dreadful. Which is a universal theme, I am sure x