Two You, My Boy

This started off as a birthday letter, but I felt weird about writing one and then realized that I wasn’t up for writing one every year, for every child. Eh, call me lazy, but I think there are plenty of pictures and home videos to suffice.

But I liked the title, so I kept that.

Friday was Aiman’s second birthday and we’re not big party people, preferring small family (and friends) dinners/celebrations, and that’s exactly what we did. We went over to Saad’s aunt’s place because that’s where the most kids were centrally located and had dinner and then cake afterwards. Sounds plain in text, but was just what we were looking for. I mean, I can see myself throwing a big party for Aiman and 10 of his friends or something in the future, but while he’s relatively unaware, we’re sticking to smaller shin-digs.

My sister volunteered to make him a cake, and not just any cake but a 3-D shark cake. She’s quite a baker and loves making desserts, so this was just up her alley. She baked a whole lot of cake and finished the actual carving out and placement of pieces before running late for work, so I finished it up and decorated it. Let me tell you that it was so much fun to make and decorate this cake, that from now on we’re making homemade 3-D cakes for every birthday. My youngest sister who’ll be 11 in a few months has already  put in her order for her birthday cake.

A word of advise, “Super Moist”  Yellow cake, one of my favorite kinds, is TERRIBLE for frosting. The surface crumbles at the slightest touch of frosting, no matter how long you let it cool, hence the “super moist” part, duh. It was all in good and fun though, so whatevs.

Oh and the little fish? My sister made cupcakes with the extra batter and I carved fish out of them. Again, because the cake was moist, it was a challenge to frost those little suckers without accidentally breaking off their tails (all of their tails broke off, but frosting is great glue) in which case they’d drown, you know, in that painted sea of frosting on the tray and then they’d REALLy be as doomed as the little blue fish already in the shark’s mouth.

Well that was a lot of cake and frosting talk.

Aiman was t h r i l l e d when we sang Happy Birthday to him (you can almost hear his squeal in the picture below) and I would’ve taken a picture of the cousins and sister who inhaled the cake, but I was busy cleaning up the cake bits that had somehow gotten on the walls. We were supposed to go to the zoo earlier that day, but something came up and so it’s postponed for this week. The best part of the whole thing to me was seeing how happy he was to be around his cousins. Cheesy and cliche, I know, but kiddo LOVES his cousins so much, it makes me smile to know that he’ll enjoy the company of a sibling. I know he’ll seem like a giant kid-kid compared to a newborn, although he’s pretty big for his age anyway, but I still can’t help but call him my baby. And I’m sure I’ll do so for a long time.

Squeeeeeee!

Thigh doubles as napkin

Oh lovekins, it’s such a privilege and blessing to see you grow.

We love you, eternally.