Little Girls at Their Birthday Parties

Check out the cake! Image from flickr.com.

I'm facing 50 this month.

Things have been rough for various reasons--none of us feels much like celebrating, I'm sure--but I've started hinting around to H. that I'm wishing for a good cake. You know, pink sugar roses, rich chocolate crumb, delectable filling, real flowers, whatever, as long as it's lavish and divine. By now, he knows my cake tastes.

My birthday is stirring up memories of childhood parties at our house in Dumont. They were simple and fun.

Our Figgy is an only child, and that may be one reason why we've had more elaborate plans--a small clutch of girls and a very special yoga teacher, Miss Wendy, leading them in a trip to the park and evening circle time, back when they believed in fairies; a sleepover for 14 in our small house; and last year's modestly catered boy-girl party in a room at a restaurant with chicken fingers, soda on tap, a sheet cake and a huge platter of chocolate-chip cookies, fresh from my oven.

Enough is Enough
My parties were all at home, and often involved my mother having us squish together on the couch for the mandatory photo. We had a mirror over the couch, so in the old black and whites, her reflection from the waist up shows, as she smiles over the old blue glass flashbulb. I think she is wearing a white polyester top. I know she is wearing a knee-length A-line skirt, because she never wore pants when I was young--except on Thursday nights, for bowling.

We played musical chairs or pin the tail on the donkey, wore paper party hats [the elastic hurt my chin] and sat at the dining room table for layer cake [generally from a Duncan Hines mix] with frosting [from scratch], ice cream, paper noisemakers and maybe candy. My mother was thrifty. I'm pretty sure she saved the candles after I made my wish and blew them out.

One year, I was so upset, because one of the game prizes was a hair clip that I really, really, really wanted. I didn't know about it till my mother presented it to one of my friends. It was a brand-new, cellophane-wrapped Goody barrette--light blue oval, with glitter.

I wanted it bad [my hair was parted on the side then, and it would sit nicely], and made that known. I think I cried. My mother would have none of that. The prize went to the party guest.

Bittersweet Life Lesson
Now I'm older. Wiser. I like to think I have a big heart. I know what really matters, and it's not a pretty hair accessory or the finest pink sugar roses. [I know all that, yet can't help myself from longing for them sometimes still.]

The things that really matter are the things money can't buy. And that's what I am wishing for.

Can you even believe these cakes from Sweet Sisters Cakes in Clifton? H. got me a beautiful cake from that bakery--topped with pink sugar roses--for my 40th birthday. But I truly don't expect anything like that this year, for many different reasons. Check www.sweetsisterscakes.com.