half-birthday cake surprise
November 9th, 2009
We’ve had a rather rough few days around here. It hasn’t been all bad, we’ve had plenty of storytelling and tickling and other pleasant interactions. But we’ve also had way more than our usual share of time-outs and dicussions about why it’s not okay to disobey your mother, or to speak rudely, or to throw books, or to hit. We’ve talked about how it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to say, “I’m really angry about this,” but it’s not okay to lose your temper and take your anger out on the people around you.
I don’t think there’s any particular reason Annalie has been testing limits lately. She’s been eating and sleeping normally. Our routine is settling back down after travels and houseguests and sickness, so that’s probably part of it. I think it’s mostly just one of those things that kids do from time to time, checking to see if all the rules are still the same. Or maybe God thought I hadn’t been challenged enough lately. Who knows.
In any case, today was Annalie’s half-birthday—that is, the day she turned 5 1/2. My piano teacher’s family used to celebrate half-birthdays with half a cake, just for fun. Troy and I have celebrated each other’s half-birthdays a few times over the years (mine is 9/11, which has a whole new meaning the past eight years), when we’ve been apart on our actual birthdays. Today I decided to surprise Annalie with a half-cake because I thought we could use a fun surprise.
I tried to be sneaky about it. When I was in the kitchen cleaning up and Annalie was upstairs drawing and watching Cyberchase, I whipped up a small one-layer lemon cake as quietly as I could. I didn’t use my big stand mixer because I figured Annalie might hear it. While it was baking, I went back upstairs and played a game of UNO with Annalie, then went back downstairs to take out the trash and recycling, and take the cake out of the oven and make some frosting.
I discovered I could not make the frosting without using the stand mixer. Sure enough, within two seconds of turning it on, I heard Annalie jump off the couch and come clattering downstairs. I flicked the mixer off, met Annalie in the kitchen doorway and said, “You can’t come in! It’s a surprise for you and it’s not ready yet.”
Annalie grinned and asked, “Is it cake? It smells like lemon cake!”
“It’s a surprise, that’s all I’m saying. Can you please stay upstairs for a few more minutes? And not try to sneak into the kitchen? I really want it to be a fun surprise,” I answered.
Annalie, still grinning, replied, “Okay, Mama! I won’t try to sneak down, I promise.” Then, true to her word, she went back upstairs and stayed put till I was done assembling and frosting the cake. I was quite proud of her for that.
When I went upstairs to tell her she could come down and see her surprise, she fairly flew down the stairs, then giggled with delight when she saw the cake. I asked her if she knew why I made her half a cake. She didn’t, so I told her that today was her half-birthday, that today she was officially 5 1/2 years old. She laughed, then ran to get plates and forks.
We put candles in the cake, I sang to her, we took a photo for Troy, and she blew out her candles. We had tall glasses of milk and lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting for dinner. Annalie smiled and chattered nonstop the whole time, and gave me about 17 hugs and kisses while we were eating and talking about the fact that now she’s closer to being six than she is to five.
After dinner we turned on the Christmas lights still strung on our house and in the lemon tree, and went outside to play a game Annalie invented, called “Look, Gramaw sent me a care package!” Annalie put a bunch of stuffed animals and her Halloween candy in a big box, wrote “Gramaw” for the return address and scribbled fake cursive lines for the delivery address, and set it outside the sliding glass door. Then we came inside and went back outside, pretending to be surprised by the big box on the patio. Annalie spent a good 15 minutes exclaiming over the box’s contents and naming each of her “new” stuffed animals. She put the candy back in her Halloween pumpkin, saying she didn’t want any candy right then, since she’d just eaten cake. Very sensible of her, I thought.
Right before bedtime, Annalie almost lost it because she wanted to take a shower upstairs, not downstairs. I’d already switched from a bath to a shower because she insisted that she’d told me she wanted a shower (even though she had told me she wanted a bath), and didn’t feel like switching bathrooms. I told her that she could have a shower upstairs tomorrow, but tonight we were staying downstairs. Oh, the drama. Then she yelled at me because I grabbed the wrong cupcake pajamas from her dresser, she wanted the shorts ones, not the stupid long pants ones! Cue me counting to ten under my breath and saying a prayer for patience.
Compared to the defiance I’ve been dealing with in the past few days, this evening was actually pretty mild. I stayed calm and offered Annalie the choice between downstairs shower or going to bed early, and she backed down, grumbling, and even offered an apology for yelling at me. After her shower we were talking about the fact that when a grown-up says, “This is what we’re doing,” it’s not okay for a kid to yell just because they don’t like what the grown-up said. I asked Annalie why she thought she’d been having so much trouble controlling her temper the last few days, and she shook her head and said, “I just don’t know, Mom! It’s a mystery.”
Maybe it’s just because she’s 5 1/2 now. Life does get more complicated as you get older. I won’t make the mistake of thinking that a 5 1/2-year-old can’t be troubled or worried. I remember being 5 1/2, and in my experience childhood was not all gumdrops and roses. I guess all Troy and I can do is love her, teach her, guide her, give her as much freedom as we safely can, and surprise her with the occasional half-birthday cake.
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You are such a good Mom, what a fun, bright cake!
I have never celebrated my half birthday but it’s on Christmas Eve so I guess there’s that. ;)
Also, I’m taking a cake decorating class! It’s offered through Michael’s. We get to work on our first cake tonight. Did you ever take a decorating class or are you just naturally talented?
Nope, I’ve never taken a cake decorating class, or an art class for that matter. I guess it’s just natural talent, if you can call squiggling frosting onto a cake from a ziplock back “talent.”
I always celebrate my half-birthday and no one ever understands it! I’m glad you’re joining in the fun :)
what a great mommy you are! baking a cake for a half birthday!
i can’t imagine what it must be like when your kid is testing its bounderies while being kind of a single mom….cudos to you!!
and i hope that things will calm down. what i thought when i read the post was, maybe annalie misses troy a lot these days now that all the fun stuff is over and things slow down. maybe it’s one of these days when you realize that someone VERY important is just not there (and won’t be for another +days)? just a thought, though.
have a great day!
Yes, I’m sure you are right and that Troy being gone has more than a little to do with Annalie’s occasional defiance. God knows, when I have a bad day I am often thinking, Waaaah, I want Troy!
Bethany, thank you for this honest post. We have been suffering from the same things around here times two. The only difference is that I have Hubby here with me and you have to take care of it all by yourself. That is hard.
Happy 1/2 Birthday Annalie!!
I hope the next week is an easy one for you both.
Thanks, Anna. :-) Things are already better here. I have no doubt we’ll have more bad days, but for now we’re good. I hope things get less fractious for you too!
Awesome idea!! You are such a great mom!! Hope this phase goes by quickly for you!
I went through this with Nate a few times last year while hubby was deployed (and he was almost 6, then 6) A few times I could tell that he just really needed to vent his frustration/anger at missing his father and didn’t know how, so I’d let him do a little yelling (nothing mean, just general ARGGGGHHHH), and then after a few minutes we talked about it, reiterating the same ideas you did. It wasn’t always easy, but I tried to remember that sometimes I got angry because he was gone, and it was natural for the kids to do so as well.
Which is what you already know and do…but I know sometimes it helps to hear that someone else completely understands, and it eventually passes :)
It does help! Thanks. :-)
I’m sorry your having to go through this with her, i am inclined to think it’s the deployment. I have seen my share of angry children still not understanding why daddy is away and why he’s gone. Sometimes they don’t understand that it’s ok to say “I miss daddy.” I’m not sure if I have read on your blog that you talk to her about missing him or if you talk alot about him in general. My daughter and I are going through her first deployment and it’s a LONG one 12 months my husband has never been gone this long since she’s been born. I make sure we talk about him often, and we are very open at saying how much we miss him and love him, and he’s in our prayers every day. I want to also add that maybe the daddy doll I made her has helped her. She lays down at night and talks to her doll as if she’s talking to her daddy. It’s been super cute to hear her tell him about her day and what she did….she often tells her doll that she misses him and loves him and is always giving him hugs. https://www.hugahero.com/ that is the link to the daddy dolls but if you can sew you can make one on your own….
I wish you luck and my prayers are with your husband for a safe deployment
Thanks, Lety! Yes, we talk about Daddy every day, and pray for him every night. :-) Annalie does miss him, and I’m sure that at least a small part of her defiance lately is related, either directly or indirectly, to the fact that she only has one of her parents right now. We were fortunate that we had several shorter “practice” separations from Troy before this long one, when he was gone for 3-4 weeks at a time, so I think this long one has been easier for her to understand. Also, we keep ourselves busy and distracted with traveling, having houseguests, etc., and Annalie has been able to talk to Troy on Skype a few times since he’s been gone.
Aw, a half birthday! What a fun idea!
My ex boyfriend John is adopted and every year, faithfully, his parents celebrate his real birthday and his adopted birthday. It’s pretty fun. The real birthday is for everyone to come and celebrate and the adopted birthday is just for the immediate family to celebrate them being a family.
Hope Annalie gets over this phase soon, it must be tough for both of you. I know how it feels to get really upset and angry and then regret it.
Yep. Each year is a little harder than the last. I thought 3 was hard until the kid got to 4. And then I thought 4 was hard until the kid got to 5. And then I thought we would NEVER make it past 5 until we got to 6 and realized that 6 is WAY harder… Umm… Am I helping?
No? Sorry Sorry. Half-birthdays and giggle fests and tickle monsters and fingernail painting parties make up for it.
Why, thank you Jen, for your encouraging uplifting words. ;-)
We recently had a MOPS speaker talk about development stages and she gave us a list of what behaviors to expect at what ages. At 5, things were all calm and comfortable. At 5 1/2, all that goes out the window. Typical behaviors include “oppositional behavior”, “worrier”, “hesitant, dawdling, indecisive”, “over-demanding and explosive”, “less motor control than before”, “at odds with self and the environment”. My own little girl recently hit 5 1/2 and often works hard to prove the list right.
So what Annalie is going through is “typical”, but that doesn’t make living through it much easier. I hope things smooth out quickly!
I suspected there might be something developmental going on. Nice to have that confirmed! And for me, it does make it a little easier to deal with. I’m logical like that.
oh, my daughter (7 yrs old in december) & husband would love this idea of 1/2 birthdays! any excuse for them to bake & have fun. they actually baked a carrot & walnut cake last night. i’m definitely introducing 1/2 birthdays next year!
a) I just found your sleep e-mail and you are going to save my life! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
b) How cute that you had a little half-birthday celebration =) I love it!
forgot to add: LOVE the 1/2 candle!
happy 5 1/2 birthday to the birthday girl!!
Love the half birthday celebration. My kids would love this, well, this and any other reason to eat cake!
I understand about the 5 1/2 thing too. My little girl just turned 6 and seems to have grown up overnight. She still has the testing boundaries thing, but I feel like I can tell her the why to everything and she understands it right now. That wasn’t the case 6 months ago. I hate(d) being the constant disciplinarian instead of “fun mom,” but at the time it was a necessary evil. I really don’t want my kid to turn out like some of the kids I see around who act like they are entitled to whatever they want. A friend of ours, who is older and wiser and has teenagers, told us recently that it is always something. They aren’t sleeping, they are potty training, learning to read, learning to drive, etc. I just wanted to pass on that I have been there and there is a silver lining: She isn’t driving, she isn’t dating, and this will end. Good luck…to you and to us all!
True! As a friend of mine always says about her kids and whatever they’re going through, This is only a season. There’s always something better—or worse!—down the road. It’s nice to hear that your daughter seems to be more open to reasoning now that she’s 6, so there’s hope for us.
I’m so glad you posted this in time for me to use your half-birthday half-cake celebration idea for christa’s half-birthday next week! Thanks :)
That’s awesome! What a great mommy you are. :)
(will you share your lemon cake recipe?) (please?)
It’s just the lemon cake from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, with a couple teaspoons of lemon zest stirred in.
brilliant cake, such a good idea to celebrate half birthdays, i had never heard of that before now…
I’ve always celebrated Kyra’s half-birthday and we almost celebrate it the same way with a half cake. However, we also call her half-birthday her Book Birthday. I personally think that an entire year is awfully long for a child to wait for a special day that is all about them, so I like the idea of the half-birthday. Kyra almost gets more excited about her Book Birthday than her real one because she knows that she will get half a cake and also a book gift, and she knows that I always choose a special book. I picked up a leather bound Alice in Wonderland for her last year when she was 12 1/2. Over the years I purchased The Wind In The Willows, The Wizard of Oz, etc. Happy half-birthday to Annalie!
Book birthday! What a fantastic idea.
What a super fun idea! That cake looks really yummy, too.
I hear ya sister! I think 5.5 is one of those not a big girl, not a baby moments and it’s tough for our kiddos to sort those feelings out. I love the half birthday cake :)
Hang in there. If you ever need to vent I’m always around. Sometimes my girls get me so riled up and they don’t even have clue that they did it! haha
It was my half birthday same day but I forgot. Shame, it is a very good reason to have cake. Great looking cake too (with only half the calories of ordinary cake.
How am I behind again?! I thought, finally one blog I’m all caught up with. But this post is old!!! How did I lose two days?!
I must be low on sleep or something. That would explain why I saw the half cake and totally didn’t get that it was a half cake until I read that it was. Alan, on the other hand, saw the picture and said, “oh look, a half cake.”
Happy belated half birthday Annalie!
Haha! I think I still have the Happy Birthday banner that you added the 1/2 to! That 1/2 is probably still around though – I don’t throw much away……
I like the picture of Annalie dancing around.:)