Tomorrow is the Boy’s birthday party. His actual birthday isn’t until Wednesday, but who really throws a birthday party on Wednesday when we can do a double-duty birthday/Mother’s-Day party on the preceding Sunday?

The upshot of this plan was simple: K kicked everyone out of the house in the early afternoon to work on the cake. It was one of those moments really to make me realize just how ineffably wonderful K is: how many would make a Black Forest cake as opposed to simply buying a cake at this or that bakery? In the end, it’s not important how many would bake versus buy, it only matters that E and K are lucky enough to have a mother who bakes.

So the Boy and I headed to a park while the Girl went to a neighborhood friend who recently got a puppy. Everyone was happy. K had a quiet house in which to bake and clean; E had a playground to overwhelm him; the Girl got to play with both a friend and a puppy.

We all returned afterward for cake decoration, which doesn’t go quite as planned, and fresh fruit with whipped cream — as in heavy whipping cream that’s been whipped — and some last-minute playing in the yard.

The whole time, the Boy was thrilled.

“Who has ‘happy birthday’ tomorrow?” we all asked in turn.

The Boy points to himself and shouts, squeals, or barks, “Happy birthday!”