Birthdays are pretty low-key at our house.  There are no parties, no themes, no anybody wearing a costume and no showers of gifts.  There is cake.  We light candles and sing to the birthday boy or girl.  Because the cake is just about the only thing that distinguishes the birthday from other days, it has become very important.  And so my daughter J, who turns four this week, has been dreaming of the perfect cake for a month.  She wants hers in the shape of a train.  It’s not because she is a particularly big fan of trains.  She has seen me make a train cake in the past with different color m&ms filling the cars.  She is a big fan of m&ms.

What type of cake does she want?  Orange.  Why orange?  Because she is still one of the most contrary children on the planet and when I listed every kind of cake I could think of for her to choose, orange was one of the few things I did not suggest.  I’m thinking we’ll tweak a yellow cake.

If you’ve read the little blurb about me, you know that my twins will have their first birthday the day after J’s fourth.  They won’t be having any cake this year.  (My kids don’t get dessert until they are two.  Go ahead and call me a big meany, they don’t know what they’re missing.)  But it makes me consider future years.  I think it will only be fair to let each twin choose his or her own cake.  This will mean me making two more cakes when we haven’t even finished the birthday cake from the day before.  This may create a hazardous situation for me.

I have a sweet tooth.  I also have a fear of gaining weight.  Sometimes logic escapes me when I try to reconcile the two notions.  I have been known to eat sweets to get them out of the house.  Better to go ahead and eat it now rather than risk being tempted later, right?  I also eat the sweets to protect my kids’ diets.  Just last night I ate the last cookie in the house because I had a feeling the bigger kids would fight over it today.  Excellent solution.

I believe our diets are reasonably healthy for the most part.  And after chasing four kids around the house all day, sometimes I deserve an extra cookie.  But three cakes in two days is dessert overload for just about anyone.  Perhaps I should rethink this no party thing.  It might be a good idea to invite just enough people over to help us eat all the cake.