Three weeks into the new school term and we’ve all come down with the lurgy bug from hell. This particularly nasty bug – we’re talking dizzy heads, razor-blade tonsils, severe grumpiness, hallucinations, coughing like a 60-a-day smoker – claimed the youngest boy as it’s first victim. As soon as he ceased with the hacking cough the oldest son came down with it, then the middle boy got it then finally I was floored by it after a full seven days sans sleep, wiping floors, moping brows and shoving seemingly endless supplies of bed clothes into the washing machine.
The baby has stayed strong and bug free throughout – testament to the power of breastfeeding.
And as usual, the husband didn’t get the bug. This, he swears, is because of his superior O’Neill genes. The O’Neills of old, he says, spent their days out on the battlefields of Ireland fighting and hacking off heads – and in the process getting a good bit of fresh air – while the Brehans, my smarty pants law-making ancestors, spent their days in darkened, dusty rooms reading books and being generally wise and condescending.
And so we all spent our youngest son’s second birthday party attempting and failing miserably to overdose on sugar-based products and consume salty snacks. I know we’ll look back and laugh at the camcorder footage of us all wheezing and puffing while blowing out the candles and of the ‘Happy Birthday’ chorus peppered with bouts of loud hacking, rattling coughing.
Despite my sorry state I still managed to bake the boy a cake. I modelled my masterpiece on the white bunny rabbit he so lovingly named Rambo. The cake was a glorious concoction of sponge cake and coconut buttercream icing with a few chocolate buttons for the eyes, nose and mouth. When I unveiled it at the party everyone assumed it was a little dog. I couldn’t find the words to tell them it was supposed to be a rabbit. I just bit my lip and tried not to cry.
A few years ago (when my cake baking abilities were still sub-standard) I made the oldest boy a cake in the shape of a white racing car. I was so pleased with my creation I showed it off to my sister who later described it as, and I quote, ‘a roast chicken cake’. I later described her as ‘a cow’ and said she was jealous of my far superior cake decorating abilities. In hindsight she may have had a point. The thing looked like a raw chicken with go-faster stripes down the two sides. I can’t imagine what the attending children thought….‘Mummy, why is Daniel’s mum asking us to sing while he blow outs candles stuck on top of an uncooked chicken?
I used to be a rubbish cook. In my student years I would regularly muck up making even Pot Noodles. I literally couldn’t put the hot water into the plastic container without having a minor scalding-related catastrophe. I once made a cheesecake for the husband –who was then my boyfriend – which had the consistency of vegetable soup. He ate it and from that day to this when someone mentions cheesecake in conversation he makes an involuntary retching motion. Years later he married me despite my glaringly obvious flaws in the kitchen. That’s true love right there people.
My cooking has improved enormously over the years. This is partly due to the fact that children are brutally honest when it comes to food. If something looks like boke – which my cheesecake certainly did – they will inform the chef in graphic detail. So I bought myself a cook book, studied hard and am now renowned in our family for my cooking. And it’s for the right reasons, not for making stew that tastes like socks actually smell.
My cakes have also risen in standards in the years since. It is now a rule that I bake a cake for every birthday, anniversary and celebratory occasion in our family. People actually look forward to sampling my next creation as opposed to the past when they would stock up on the indigestion remedies and make sure the doctor’s surgery has a spare appointment slot for the next day.
For the middle boy’s last birthday I created an edible dinosaur world complete with volcano. For the oldest boy’s affair I made a massive Ben10 Omnitrex cake. The husband usually requests vanilla cream cake for his birthdays and I fashioned a strawberry marshmallow pink christening cake for the little girl’s big day last week – although the marshmallows were, in all honesty, a last minute idea used to mask the fact that I made the icing a tad too runny.
I’m not one to blow my own trumpet but Mr Kipling, if you’re reading this, watch your back, I now too make exceedingly good cakes.
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