Pink Cake

It was a week of momentous events, or what pass for momentous events within the foreshortened horizons of suburban parenthood. Seamus turned three, Booker graduated from “The Twinkles” in Suzuki violin. We could not be happier with each of these milestones, hoping they signal smoother traveling on roads ahead.

Above is infant Seamus with Grams in Brazil, many moons ago, already defiant, pudgy and besmirched. None of this has changed significantly.

And here is Seamus as we know him now, a tad leaner but with the same gleam in his eye, always ready for mischief.

For the past month, whenever anyone mentioned his birthday he reminded us that he wanted a pink cake. He expressed no other desire, just pink cake. I am sure we will never have it this easy again. He got his wish.

Here Booker and Seamus compete to see who can singe their eyebrows first, while Finn looks on. And below is Seamus, shirtless and eyebrowless, still licking the pink frosting from his rosy cheeks. Moments later all the assembled ruffians were tackling one another on the slide. Miraculously, we reached the end of the day with no torts.

Booker’s Twinkle graduation was just as thrilling. As a typical overscheduled Montgomery County five-year old, he had difficulty squeezing the big event into his busy agenda. I whisked him from capoeira straight to Ingleside Retirement Home at Rock Creek, arriving towards the tail end of the program. This meant that he had missed his chance to lead off the show with the other five-year olds, and had to be inserted amidst the most advanced students. A visible pall fell over the room, and not merely over the faces of the full-time residents, when it became clear that Booker’s “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” variations would be levered in between Monti’s “Czardas” and the Bach double violin concerto. When Booker stepped forward and announced that he would be playing all the Twinkle variations, from my privileged post backstage I could see the furrowed brows and downward stretched-mouths that accompanied the audibly sharp collective intake of breath. Fears were greatly eased when he corrected himself: “Well, not all of them. Just some of them.” He limited himself to three, played with gusto and greeted with relief. For the rest of the afternoon, he proudly displayed the blue ribbon awarded for graduation. Oddly enough, Mary was not given a ribbon.