let them eat....what?

One time when Ellie was here and helping me sort through some crap in my garage, she asked if we could throw out the giant tupperware cake caddy. "No way!" I replied, "I have to transport cake at least twice a year!"

I was referring to birthday cakes, of course. Between parties and school treats, a tupperware cake caddy is a staple for every family with children under age 12.

My son turns 12 this weekend, and I will not be using  the cake caddy.  

Let's take a quick look back before I explain. What follows is a random study in our family's birthday cakes, selections highlighted purely on the basis of the fact that I happened to label the online photo albums that year so I found them quickly.   

Here's a good example of a classic family birthday cake for us. Baked, frosted and served in pyrex; tasty and festooned with something special, in this case fresh strawberries. In most other cases, some class of candy or crushed cookie substance.

nice headband

 The fifth birthdays were particularly good, I must have been compensating for some other failure on those years:

His

and hers

My cakes were usually otherwise teetering right on the brink of disaster. But if there's one lesson I've learned in my dozen years of parenting, it is this: if you have enough frosting, you can fix anything

Just call it a giant oreo and pretend that you meant to do it all along

 Then there were the years of pie.

   weird.

Okay, so they weren't always home cooked, but we did always try to give the people what they wanted. Here's an example of someone wanting a restaurant cake, with the bonus element of turning out to be the world's most adorable birthday photograph:

No, no. Wait. This is the world's cutest birthday photo:

Pink handprints on her bald head. I die. For the record, that one was homemade.

We did have our share of $15 Costco cakes over the years as well. Don't you judge!

Which brings us to today, and the revelation of exactly what he desired to bring in to share with his classmates to mark the anniversary of his birth: 

cake caddy not required.

Happy Birthday, baby!