Well, Saturday was Simon's second birthday. Had 23 children and 25 parents over. Great fun. The hydrangeas weren't quite crinkled into a crisp, Simon's new playhouse was pressed into service by many of the kids, a bunch more were in the pool, and he loved the cake! Since Simon's allergic to basically everything (sigh), I looked and looked for about a month to figure out how to make a wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free (aaaaargh) birthday cake. I finally found some strange mix and put an egg in it, since I don't know if he's ALLERGIC to eggs or just sensitive. The cake recipe was for chocolate, but he's allergic (of course!), so I put vanilla and almond flavors. I then mixed three cubes of butter, and entire pound of confectioner's sugar, and massive amounts of BLUE food coloring to make a highly blue cake. Then I put red dots all over it!! The cake was a huge hit. All of the kids ate it. I was shocked. I took a bite myself and then put it back on the table. Ugh. Unfortunately, I'm a really good baker and I'm used to making REAL food (sigh), so I gave up on that. About ten minutes later, Simon came over and took the rest of my piece (after eating his own), stuffing it into his mouth with a small, blue-stained hand and looking absolutely ecstatic. Neat. I have a severe hatred of the ubiquitous "GOODY BAG." I just cannot bring myself to bribe a bunch of little kids to come to my kid's party by giving them presents. Forget it. If they don't want to come because they're not getting some stupid plastic bag full of gifts, well then, let them stay home. I wondered if anybody would complain, but all was fine. In the first place, Simon's only two and the kids are barely sentient (and I mean that in the nicest possible way.) In the second place, I didn't invite any pre-yuppie punks.