Birthday Preparations!

I’ve just finished writing out our weekly menu, which of course includes Spencer’s birthday meal! I can’t believe our little boy is already 2! It’s also hard to imagine that I’ll be saying nearly the exact same thing next year at this time.

Included in his birthday feast (which is primarily roasted turkey), is a chocolate train cake! So I’ve been reading up on how to make these so called train cakes. What is it with people torturing our children by using tons of black licorice? You can rest assured that there will be no black licorice for this two year old on his birthday.

In related news, Spencer received his first birthday card this year from Andy’s parents two days ago (Thursday). We tried to make it exciting, as he really doesn’t know what his birthday is all about yet. Since Blue’s Clues is one of his most favourite TV shows to watch, Andy thought he could help make the mail more exciting by singing the ‘Mail Song‘ from the show. This, it proves, was a disaster to do. It was a nice dump-truck card, with a big dump truck on it. When Spencer saw it, he became extremely excited. As in, hoppy excited and squeely. He kept pointing to it saying, ‘Truck! Truck!’ and making for it. Eventually I asked if he wanted me to cut the truck out for him, cause nothing else was seeming to please him. Thrilled, he said, ‘Yes!’ and eagerly awaited. So I cut it out and handed it to him, and he had one of the worst break downs I’ve seen in awhile. He kept holding it up to me saying, ‘Truck, truck!’ in a longing/agonizing sort of way, like, where is it? where’s my truck? Why is it paper? He apparently did not want it cut out. It occurred to us later that in Blue’s Clues, when Steve opens his mail, there is a video in the letter that ‘comes to life’. We think Spencer must have thought that the truck was going to ‘come to life’, which was very exciting, but when it didn’t, he was heartbroken. Oh, it was such a trying 1/2 hour as we tried to explain that real mail doesn’t come to life. Alas that we should be caught in this, and if this isn’t proof enough how TV influences children, I don’t know what else would. At least it was only over a truck, and not something more dire. Poor boy. He will be getting trucks on his birthday, so he’ll be amended soon enough. We’ll have to watch ourselves a little bit more in how we relate TV to real life. In the meantime, he was OK if I taped the picture to the back of one of his car books.

Andy is busy with a RCIA workshop today, so I have ‘Spuddy-Mommy Time’ today, and tomorrow as well, as Andy is having his day off. I’m hoping to make bread today and get started on figuring out Spence’s cake.

Unfortunately I didn’t get around to doing a Recipe Thursday this week; it turns out this week has been more than full and I don’t think I even had a chance to check email on Thursday.

I thought I’d post our menu for the week; if there’s a recipe you want from it, lemme know and I can post it on Thursday (or before, if I have other plans).

Monday – Meatballs & Spaghetti
Tuesday – Almond-Dijon Crusted Chicken
Wednesday – Roast Turkey with White Bean Ragu, Asiago Mashed Potatoes, and Yams
Thursday – Chicken Parisienne (Slow-Cooker)
Friday – Turkey Pot Pie
Saturday & Sunday – leftovers!

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