Has a part-ay, do ya?

Have you ever experienced deja-vu? Silly question, of course you have.

Have you ever experienced deja-vu? Silly question, of course you have.

(You know I had to do that, didn't you?)

It was one of those days. One of those birthdays. Not mine, but my husband's...the maker of all things in this house. For today only, I will hereby dub him the Old Man.

It was a busy day, for him and me. Work, kids, cleaning, fixing things, you name it.

While I knew what kind of cake he wanted - white cupcakes with white icing - I had no idea how else I was going to make the day special. The Old Man doesn't like presents; or rather, professes that he needs nothing and to buy him something assaults his frugality - making it not really a gift at all.

All The Old Man ever really wants is a really good meal. Unfortunately for me, that never involves going out for dinner. That would threaten his frugality, and how can you challenge a man's frugality on his birthday? I cannot.

So, did I make his favourite dish, "my famous meatloaf", whereby upon eating it he becomes putty in my hands and heads aimlessly towards the garage to make me something? Well, that would have been a great option, considering he has Sophie's project 3/4 finished....but no. I did not. We had meatloaf last week; so I instead made his second favourite, steak sandwiches...on Naan bread loaded with cheese.

This made the Old Man very happy. Sauce dripping out of the corners of his mouth and eyes out of focus, I didn't have the heart to bring him up to speed on the events of the afternoon.

You see, after school my perfect boys had a fight with each other. An all-out yelling match with the occasional push and even a misguided punch to the arm. Remember, they are 14 and 12. Hormones rage at that age, don't they? I marched down to the basement (their apartment, for all intents and purposes...which explains why you have never really seen that area) scolding, threatening, pleading for peace. After diffusing the situation, which admittedly, was not that hard to do as they are respectful boys (the Old Man insists on it) and sending them to their respective rooms to cool off, back up I went to our apartment to finish the cupcakes with Sophie.

Soph-ieeee! Soph-ieeeee! Where are you? Out of the corner of my eye, I spied my fledgling baker marching around in the snow outside. When I called her in, she announced, I'm only coming in if those boys are being nice. I hate fighting!!" Indeed! Back inside, she did a bang-up job of decorating the cupcakes using her new Easy-Bake icing tool. It's pretty slick, actually!

While I was putting the finishing touches on dinner, up slithered The Boys, with a plea of their own. They figured since it was Dad's birthday, and telling him would only ruin his day, perhaps I wouldn't tell him about the fight? They were sooo sorry, had made up and vowed to not fight over stupid stuff again (of course not!) and could they do anything to help make Dad's birthday dinner special? (My youngest son was the spokesman)

I agreed to nothing, but handed them a bag of pink balloons to blow up and hang, and we finished just as the Old Man arrived home, cheery and salivating at the scent of his dinner. He "just knew" I would make steak sandwiches!!

As we ate, the Old Man asked how everyone's day went. Sophie piped up with the declaration, "I almost ran away from home" and the look of horror on the boys' faces was all the satisfaction I needed. Here is where the deja-vu comes in: the Old Man looks up from devouring his plate (with both his eyes and mouth) and raises his eyebrows quizzically. Just like the wise mother in "A Christmas Story", I distracted him by simultaneously offering him another steak sandwich and shooting Sophie a silencing look. It worked like a charm...

In the end, the Old Man got everything he wanted for his birthday: piles of food; white cupcakes with white icing; a peaceful, angelic family, and even a book about home improvement that appealed to his practical side (which sometimes beats down his frugal side).

And I am a good wife...

Doesn't he look happy?

Isn't he a cute Old Man?

*** (If you're wondering about the post title, it was the way my youngest son sang the Happy Birthday song when he was a toddler. It was so cute, it stuck. Now we always sing it...)