To Build A Cake

T-minus two days and counting until Ash's MN fan club arrives in NY, with his Northeast fan base set to pull into the driveway via bus, subway, train, and zipcar just a day later. Everyone prepped to celebrate the birth of one amazing little boy and the truly profound two years he's spent on Earth. It goes without saying that I'm so completely ready for this celebration, but the thought also comes to mind that... I have no idea how to do this.

See, this is the first (the VERY first, as in FIRST EVER) birthday party I will ever throw for my own child. Sure, we baked a cake and said cheers last year on May 5th, but that was when the two of us were resting our heads in NY still dreaming about what our little boy's touch felt like as he continued his daily life, his norm, in Ethiopia. Granted we were ecstatic, elated, absolutely ENAMORED by this milestone - his turning one whole year old and all. But it wasn't the same type of celebration. It had it's own specialness, it's own cake. This year he's here, with us, and a different type of cake will be built.

This year for his 2nd birthday my "I wish we lived and worked next door to each other so that we could turn the world upside down with food and wine endeavors" very good friend Lauren (and famed chef author of East Village Kitchen) will be creating Ash's birthday cake. Ash's only request (because yes, he's making those nowadays) was that the cake be made of horsies. I'm pretty sure he gets that it wont actually be MADE OF horsies but will have a horse theme, at least that's what I'm running with lest we resolve to the possibility that he's pursuing some sort of Sweeny Todd misadventure...

So here's a picture I sent to the chef so that she could visualize the toppings. We've gratefully handed over full taste/ingredient/style/shape/etc... decisions to her but Ash made it very clear that there had better be some horsies on top of his cake. So we found the figures below and sent them to the chef for planning.

Then I tried to put the future cake toppers in a bag to reserve until the chef was ready to apply them to her design, and let's just say Ash wasn't having ANY of that. As far as he was concerned those horsies were his.

Yeah, I think he'll be ok with a horsey themed cake, just guessing though. I'm also guessing that this weekend is going to be one of those can-we-please-extend-this-for-another-few-days kind of weekends, but again, just guessing. After all, I've never done this before, but it's turning out to be so much fun that I can't imagine not doing it again, and again, and again, and...

The thing is, I really don't know how to do this (prepare for a toddler's birthday party) which seems so strange seeing as I have a child who can speak in clear and perfect sentences, climb absolutely anything, and make for damned sure mommy knows when she's provided an insufficient amount of "sauce" for his french fries by COUNTING the number of seconds the bottle was turned upside down... Shouldn't I get how to throw a birthday party by now? Nope. No. Not at all actually. Let me refer to the earlier reference in this post...This is my FIRST.

So, I'm entitling myself to some self-justified insanity for the 72 hours that follow this post. I'm hereby given the green light to be as insane and compulsive and detail obsessed as I damn well please. And reason #1 for this is...the birthday invitation for Ash's party is currently resting pleasantly right next to a picture my husband took of me receiving the best gift of our lives thus far. A hug from Ash's birth mom. And seeing the two right next to each other, absolutely side-by-side, evokes an sincere amount of justified insanity that does nothing less than makes me want to live up to her expectations, her hopes, her dreams, her love for her son.

This had better be one freakishly awesome cake. Pure metaphor intended...