Max Turns Three!

Our Max and Will are far more animated and responsive than they were before. We have officially entered three-dom for both boys: Will turned three just two and a half weeks ago, and Max turned three this weekend.

Matthew has been after me to make a cake. I bought all the stuff, but I’ve been putting him off:

• I adore cake, but I’m trying to lose weight.

• Matthew wants a big cake. “Two cakes, one on top of the other, with frosting in between them.” I have made cookies twice in my life, and trust me, no one will ever accuse me of being a baker.

• I have never made a cake.

As it so happens, a dear friend was in town, with plans to visit her family, but with tentative plans to see us. So I thought to myself, “How hard can this be?” I decided on cupcakes instead of cakes. I had a box of yellow cake mix and a box of chocolate cake mix. I bought two cans of frosting because I didn’t know how much I would need. I bought tubes of icing for decorating. I was going to make the best cupcakes ever because how hard can this be?

The hard part in this project was that Matthew wanted to help. I gathered ingredients and put the cupcake liners into the forms. We mixed the ingredients using the Krups mixer Mom bought for me in 1987. We poured the batter into the cups, and we put the forms into the preheated oven. Once those were done, we did the same for the second batch. The next morning, I frosted them, sans my little boy helper—no sense in inviting a kitchen disaster.

To paraphrase Mel Brooks, “What I did to cupcakes, Booth did to Lincoln.” If they had been a play, I feel that Wednesday Addams would have critiqued it:

“Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. It lacks structure, character, and Aristotelian unities.” If the cupcakes had been a prized 1930 chapel fresco of Jesus Christ, I am the elderly parishioner whose restoration failed.

Jesus looks in the mirror: “Jesus H. Christ! Is that what I look like?”

Here is what they looked like.

Not even oblique angles and poor lighting can make them look better.

Le sigh.

Friends opined that I should have piped the frosting onto the cupcakes. Like I have time to learn optimal piping techniques (this applies to bagpipes as well as to baked goods). I did not take photos, but my attempts to use blue icing for salvaging decorations were hideous. Matthew really likes sweets: the more the better, and he is starting to get particular about cake, as one might expect from one of my sons. Even Matthew wouldn’t eat the misshapen blue-decorated cupcake.

The only good thing is that my kids are completely inexperienced and have no expectations (as well as no evidence) of competence. Despite having disgraced the ancestors, there is some forgiveness.

Willie loves cake. Max does not. So while he gets excited to see it, he would not eat one. Willie ate two when given the chance. Matthew has accused me of sidestepping my promise, because no matter how we try to explain it, cupcakes are not cake. I understand this confusion—I never knew they were the same thing until I bought the cake mixes. I thought cupcakes were somehow different. Regardless, Matthew insists that I make a real cake. Because I haven’t been humiliated enough.

Our erstwhile visitor couldn’t join us this weekend after all, so the cupcakes went to friends. I left them on doorsteps so I wouldn’t have to face the expressions of dismay and recrimination.

When we celebrated, we had balloons, which are hugely popular with the newly-three set.

And then we blew out the candles.

Our boys are now four, three, and three.