Rapunzel, Rapunzel...

Genevieve turned four years old in January. (This probably deserved it's own blog post.) She had been planning for her birthday since- literally - two weeks after Rex was born. (That would be from September to January, for those of you playing the home game.)

She squirreled away her favorite clothes in a special drawer, and called them her "January clothes".

A favorite thing? It's with the January clothes. Something fancy? It's with the January clothes. That thing we can't find? With the January clothes.

And you can bet that once it went in the January clothes drawer, it was unavailable until- you guessed it- January.

The long-anticipated January clothes

With some necessary boundary setting (no hand knits or shoes in the January clothes drawer), she packed her drawer.

I've mentioned before that she turns into a Gremlin when she has sugar, so I pulled out my copy of Sweet and Sugarfree (a gift from my friend Rachel), and picked out a cake recipe that didn't sound *too* terrible for a test run.

First- in order to qualify as a cake (generally speaking), you need the Deliciousness Trifecta: eggs, sugar, flour. Of the three, this recipe had... Flour. 

We made the "cake" and the "pineapple pudding" for the topping, and had a grand time doing it. But when it came time to lick the beater, Genevieve took one lick and handed it back. 

"Maybe it'll taste better once it's baked," I said, full of hope (and sugarfree righteousness). 

It didn't. In fact, you could see the writing on the wall when Genevieve's friend PhiloSophie very politely said, "The... Uh... Frosting (?) is sort of falling off the cake."

We tasted it, and I excused everyone from having to eat it. It wasn't cake. It wasn't bread. What it was, was horrible. 

"I'm throwing away the sugarless abomination," my mother, who NEVER EVER wastes food, informed me.

I didn't argue. The first thing I did the next morning was order the princess cake she had been asking pining after begging for. The bakery asked which princess she wanted (of two choices, neither of which was Elsa), and she picked Rapunzel. 

[Verne here. Rapunzel is not a princess. Didn't those yahoos over at Disney ever crack a book? Her parents were so poor they couldn't afford VEGETABLES and -essentially- traded their baby for some. Harrumph.]

Andrew took Genevieve to pick up the cake, and it was everything she had always dreamed of. 

As you can see, it also had a knockoff Barbie stuck in it, and to my great chagrin, it wasn't just a torso. (In saying that, I don't know if that would have been better or worse.)

I have a lot of issues with Barbie, but the main one - aside from all my feminist issues - is a sensory one. They don't feel nice to play with. 

I tried to spirit Rapunzel away after we cut the cake, but even I, Captain Killjoy, am not made entirely of stone. 

[Captain Killjoy! She crushes dreams with a single syllable! She enforces bedtime! She's able to stop shenanigans with merely a raised eyebrow!)

So now, despite my efforts to the contrary, there's a Barbie in my house. And Genevieve loves her. 

... And like a file, she snuck inside in a cake.

Stylin'.

The T-Rex is decidedly NOT a party animal.

...Much better.

 

 

Yes, those are dinosaur candles, per her request.

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