Talk about being in two minds about something.
Boy Three has been spending a lot of time lately considering his forthcoming fifth birthday. It’s not til June, but it’s already looming large.
I suppose when you’ve only had four birthdays, they are a pretty big deal.
After discussing the options he seems to have settled on a fancy dress party at the local soft-play centre. He had initially proposed a Clone Warrior-themed affair, but eventually agreed that was a somewhat specialist theme, even for a die-hard fan.
“But I can go as a clone warrior, mummy?” he asked.
Then we moved on to important matters, such as cake. A Star Wars cake. (Can you do Darth Vader in icing? I wondered.)
“Oh no. I need two cakes. Can we have two cakes?” He was stricken. “Please mummy.”
“Er, I suppose so. But why do we need two cakes?”
“I want the girls to come to my party, so we’ll need a girl cake. Girls like princess cakes.”
“I’m sure they like all kind of cakes. And in any case all cakes are good, aren’t they?”
“No they aren’t. Girls only like girl cakes – princess cakes, unicorn cakes and mermaid cakes.”
“Oh,” There doesn’t seem much room for discussion on this.
“Well what do girl cakes taste like?”
“You know. Pink and princessy.”
“Don’t you think the girls would like whatever cake you’ve got for your birthday?”
“No. They’d be sad if they had to eat boy cake. And I don’t want them to be sad.”
My chivalrous boy wants his female guests to be happy, which is a good thing, but what makes them happy is girl cake. Where do I go from here?
It must be noted that the girls on the guest list should, according to Boy Three, consider themselves lucky to be invited as, despite frequent requests, none of them has agreed to his marriage proposals. “I’ll just have to marry you instead, mummy.”
Jeezo. It's constant isn't it, this bloody barrage of girl things and boy things. We're the same here. We don't stand a chance.
I know. I keep beating the same drum, but it feels like it makes no difference at all.
However the genders are different! I think it's good to celebrate the differences especially for things we can't choose (males can't grow babies and females can't usually grow chin hair until the menopause then we're equal again) alongside celebrating the equality of things we can choose (women watching rugby or men icing cakes). I love your boy's need to please and hope his understanding nature holds up when he's being screamed at by a girlfriend with pmt
Gah, my comment didn't post! What I said was that I thought your little boys I adorable. So lovely that he is thinking of other people's feeling like that.
I can confirm as a mother of a five year old girl that girls eat all kinds of cake. Cake is cake!
Perhaps you could do a separate batch of slightly more girly cup cakes. You can tell your son that these are for the girls but really you'll just pop a slice of the real cake in everyone's party bag.
I agree we should celebrate the differences, it does bother me that the genders get polarised quite so early.
I might need to do that. Perhaps I'll get him to help me make the cake thereby seeing that cake is just cake.
What about if Princess Leia was on his Star Wars cake? Wouldn't that do? I bet there are some kick-ass princesses in his class.
I did suggest her, but he wasn't very enthusiastic.
Gosh !! what about Queen Amidsla ?