Birthday Parties, Dinosaur Surgery & Remembering the Fallen

So Jack turned 1 like, 11 days ago (how unbelievably quickly has this last year gone by?!!) and I'm a special kind of bad mommy to only just be blogging about it now. But we'd decided a while back that we would have his party on Halloween, since the neighbourhood was having a big bash anyway.
Also, friends of ours were going to be moving out of the complex over the Halloween weekend, and since both of their kids' birthdays are around now, they threw them a joint party, for which I volunteered to bake the cakes.

Sometime between that party and Jack's, I agreed to bake a Dinosaur Cake for Exmi's Kid's birthday party later this month, and in a total panic decided I needed to do a trial run, just to be sure I wasn't making a promise I couldn't deliver on.

And since Jack's party was coming up, I figured my trial dinosaur could be an extra birthday cake for Jack. So it was all working out quite neatly. I love it when things just sort of fall into place like that. :-)

31 October broke and Megan and Michael hovered around me for large portions of the day, wanting to know when it was going to be time to go trick-or-treating. We bundled ourselves into the car at around 9:30 to go to Makro for supplies; Managed to get in and get out relatively quickly and painlessly. Back at home, David got to work moving things around, mowing the lawn, cleaning and generally getting the house looking vaguely decent while I got stuck into the kitchen, cleaning and prepping everything for the Great Dinosaur Trial.

Here follows the Dinosaur Saga in picture format:

From the mixing and baking to assembly of the beast's various parts, things looked very promising.


Dinosaur Assembly

It was only when I started icing the bugger that his head began to crumble. I tried to sort of glue it all together with lots of icing, but it wasn't quite the same.


Crumbly Head

Nevertheless, the show had to go on and I continued icing, thinking I could perform some cosmetic surgery with the green icing as I went.


Attempted Cover-up

But it was not to be. Shortly after getting it to look almost okay and before I had time to take a photo, my dinosaur's carefully iced-on head fell apart completely.


Things Fall Apart

There was nothing for it but to attempt a complete reconstruction.


En Route to the ER

So, just after 22:00 last night, I mixed up a new batter from which I would cut a new head, and had a little Q&A with myself with regard to which cake tin to use (the plain one or the one with the removable bottom). I chose the former, popped it into the oven and sat down with a cup of coffee while I waited for it to bake. But being exhausted and impatient to finish, I tried to remove it from the tin too soon after baking and it fell apart and I kicked myself for not having used the tin with the removable bottom.

And then I glanced over at the remains of Jack's actual birthday cake, lovingly baked for him by his Ouma on the occasion of his first birthday party ever. DNA tests were arranged on the spot and a match found. Ladies and gentlemen, we had an organ donor!


Organ Donor

Sadly, the bear was allergic to the general anaesthesia and didn't survive the removal of the upper half of his head. Several hours of surgery later, however, at
2:00 this morning, the chief surgeon on the dinosaur's reconstruction team announced the successful attachment of the donated organs. The dinosaur was transferred to ICU where he spent the early hours of the morning recovering from his ordeal. He is expected to be discharged later today, having made a full recovery.









A private memorial service will be held for the bear this evening at the Parkins residence, with coffee and cake being served afterwards...