Family Life

Success! Debbie did a masterful job at decorating Daniel’s birthday cake, as predicted. In the past she’d been plagued by icing that was too runny, so she made it extra-thick. It looked more like Play-Doh than icing, something that could be molded and shaped, laid down like wallpaper rather than paint. Decorating was easier that way.

Debbie wanted bold colours and was worried about things ending up too light or faded. She really didn’t want the black and red ending up as gray and pink, so she added the food dye liberally. In copious amounts. Without restraint. The colours turned out just right, but Debbie now has red hands. And the dishwashing brush is also permanently red.

We ate the cake at about six in the evening, and it was a huge hit. The boys had three pieces each, I think, and Joel would have had more if we’d let him. Actually he tended to eat the icing and discard the cake. I tried not to dwell on the kids ingesting all that red dye, to say nothing of all that icing sugar. Needless to say, by bedtime the boys were bouncing off the walls with manic enthusiasm. I tucked them into bed, said goodnight, and walked out of the room with both still chattering away at full speed. I dreaded trying to keep them quiet enough–and in bed long enough–to go to sleep, but things settled down and they were soon fast asleep. It was an exciting day, a good day for all of us.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 8:43 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.