Thing Two of Five: Birthdays
5 Sep 2009 2:57 PM
One of my neighbours is singing.
Really loudly.
Also really badly. Hm. Oh well.
The second thing that insomnius gave me to write about was 'Birthdays'.
Unsurprisingly I don't remember my first birthday, although I think I have seen photos. My mother and my aunt with boofy 80s hair and battery powered flashing headbands. Perhaps I am getting events confused, because I am sure I remember the rainbow flashing headbands.
On my second Birthday I had a birthday cake in the shape of a T-shirt. Another one I don't remember, but I have seen the photos enough times that it feels like I almost do.
On my third birthday somebody dropped the strawberries for my cake on the floor and we put them on the cake anyway. I do not recall this but it has been 'do you remembered' so many times that I think I do. I'm not even sure if that is what happened. I do distinctly recall a photo of my third birthday, sitting by the cake (with strawberries on it) with my mother and biological father. My father looks very young and the photo makes me uncomfortable.
I am sure I had a fourth birthday.
My 5th birthday is the first one I do actually remember. I had a cake shaped like Winnie The Pooh. And when I say it was a cake shaped like Winnie The Pooh it wasn't like a normal cake cut out in a bear shape. Oh no. It was a cake shaped like Winnie The Pooh. He was sitting up on the board, arms and legs and head and ears and everything. Made of cake. With yellow icing on his body and red icing on his shirt. He looked so delicious and I was so excited. That Pooh cake is probably the most awesome cake I have ever seen. The candles sat beside him on the board. They couldn't sit anywhere else really because there was no flat surface on my Pooh Cake - his head was round and his arms were curved and oh my gosh did I mention this cake was TOTALLY AWESOME. I also recall that the cake wasn't very delicious. The icing was really really gross. Oh well.
I don't remember my sixth birthday either. Hmm.
On my 7th Birthday I was staying with my father in Sydney. We stayed with some people and now I don't remember who they were. I do remember that we had a pool and that my Birthday cake was passion-fruit flavoured and in the shape of a 7.
On my 8th Birthday I had a Birthday Party in a park It was a proper birthday party with invitations and everything. My auntie Kylie painted our faces and my cake was a marble cake in the shape of an 8.
On my 9th Birthday my then-de-facto-stepmother forgot how old I was. She drew a big 8 on my Birthday card and it wasn't until my little brother pointed out that I was turning 9 as they were on the way to my house that the mistake was discovered. The correction to my card was hasty and transparent. I don't know if I was amused by it at the time, or if it has only become amusing in hindsight.
From then onwards my birthdays blur and fade into one another. We were poor and my mother was depressed, my birthday was always celebrated and the weather was almost always fantastic.
After we moved to melbourne and Julie and I grew up a bit we delighted in making fabulous cakes for everyone's birthdays. I'm surprised, looking back, just how many fabulous cakes I had as I was growing up, as when we started making fantastic cakes it seemed like we were doing something that we'd missed out on as children. Not so, I think. I also think it interesting that the Cakes are really the only things that I can remember. I don't even really remember the presents.
Actually I think the flashing headbands were from my sister's second birthday, not my first. Hmm. I guess it really was all about the cakes.
These days I hope it is less about the cakes and more about the company. I am fairly lazy about organising social things so my Birthday is always a good excuse to invite the internet to have a picnic in a park somewhere. The last few years I have done this I have always been surprised (and touched) by the number of people who have shown up to celebrate my birthday with me, often people that I wouldn't necessarily have expected. It is very pleasing :)