Rule #738

Rule #738: Always make the birthday cake the day before the party.

I tried. Really, I did. The day before Joshua's birthday party I planned to go to the store on the way home from Davenport, get the ingredients I needed, go home and make his cake.

On the way home from Davenport, however, in the van with a crying baby, two tired and cranky kids, one weary husband and two guest who would have to sit in the van while I ran into Wal-Mart, I decided it wasn't going to happen. It was late anyway, so I changed my plans (out of necessity) and decided to run to the store in the morning and then quickly make his pirate ship cake before the 4 o'clock party.

The next morning (today) didn't go quite as planned, however. It was 10:35 before I got out of the house and headed to Wal-Mart. I called Ernie on my way and said, "It's a good thing this is an easy cake to make. It shouldn't take me long." Uh-huh. Famous last words.

Two and a half hours later, the pirate ship cake I was slaving over was splitting down the middle. First I tried propping up both ends with nutty bars. Then the middle began crumbling. I tried filling that gap in with the pieces that fell off the sides. This wasn't working. Cakes weren't made to stand on end.

Finally, I left the big hole that crumbled out of the middle (from the weight of the swiss cake roll canons, of course) and declared it a very weathered pirate ship that had been hit by canon balls from an enemy ship. I added a few Whopper canon balls beside the damage. Done!! A perfect pirate ship cake for 7 little boys and one little girl who wouldn't care what the cake looked like anyway.

It was a good effort. And Joshua was perfectly satisfied with his nearly capsized pirate ship cake.

Unlike last night as I was finishing up the pirate "hook hands" and he ran back into the living room before bed just to hug me and say, "Thanks for making those hook hands, Mommy! I really like them!" As he turned to go to bed he added, "Even though they aren't as cool as I thought they'd be." Who couldn't love this guy? I wanted to just laugh, squeeze and hug him forever.

The birthday party was a lot of fun. Ernie kept up with the kids as they played outside, walked the plank, and played floor hockey. The pirates successfully found the treasure and all was well.

Joshua doesn't actually turn six until Friday, so I'll get sentimental about how our little boy is growing up then.