Ode to my Ma and Pa

Well once again i've let my blogs lapse. Indicative of the state of play round here these days. Today I ran around like a crazy woman trying to get everything ready for Egg's 4th birthday tomorrow. Anyone who knows our family is aware of the (impossibly!) giant shoes I have to fill. For my three sisters and I, my mom made our birthdays the most magical, happy, incredible days of the year. In many respects it was better than even Christmas!

Now that i'm on the giving end of things, it makes me appreciate her even more, as I can't imagine how she ever found the time (or the impetus) for all the many little details which made the day so perfectly special.

The day would start with a breakfast tray of our favourite treat (croissants, yummy muffins, decadent pastry, etc.), a beautiful bloom in a vase, several cards (Hallmark owes her big time), and a few presents to start the day off right. The house would be decked out in colour-coded, themed extravagance, and you could bet that the birthday party later on would be the envy of all my school mates (a reason why my popularity was pretty much guaranteed throughout school years!).

I'd be fitted out with a new outfit to wear on the day - which as a fashionista-in-training was absolutely essential - and if the party happened to be of the slumber variety, you could bet that it would carry on for most of the night, with my parents not so much as making a peep.

The day would culminate in my Dad entering the room, making a dashing figure and having come straight from the operating room, probably not having slept properly in days, bearing a HUGE box and an even bigger smile. The game of 'money or what's in the box' would then commence and much hilarity would ensue as my friends would beg and scream for me to take the vast amounts of cash Dad was proffering in return for the contents of 'the box'. But of course, they didn't know Dad like i did. Year after year he would come up with the goods - buying us our dream present (whatever that might be) and filling the box with enough of our favourite candies and sweets to open a shop.

Anyway, it's midnight now and I must make a sharp detour from 'Memory Lane' as i'm shattered - having painstakingly baked 40 cupcakes (gourmet from scratch of course) for Egg to bring into his nursery tomorrow. It would have only been half that normally, but of course tomorrow just happens to be a combined nursery day (the first all year!) and ALL children are joining for the morning session, so I was gently told that i'd have to provide 40 of anything I wanted to bring (gulp).

I also have to be up early to whip up his favourite requested breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and fresh cream. Then i have to blow up about 50 balloons, wrap presents and decorate the terrace.

Oh yeah - and I stupidly have to finish 2/3 of his birthday cake. No, I couldn't go for a simple cake this year. Somehow in my baking mayhem this afternoon I decided that an incredibly complex 3 tiered buttercream and chocolate ganache cake would be just the ticket (sigh). What was i thinking?!

Anyway, expect pics tomorrow and a full run down. I shall drift off to sleep now reminiscing about being in labour with Egg four years ago today (in fact it was right about now that I was in the 'transition phase' and wanting to die. It was also right about now that a good friend of ours somehow managed to get onto the delivery ward and strolled casually right into the birthing room where I was festooned in a big birthing pool moaning as if i was being crucified.) Ah, the memories....