February birthdays mean spring is around the corner (02/27/06)

The February birthdays are finally here. I thought I had bought good gifts this year by finding skateboards for all three of the kids. Notice that word “thought” is past tense.

I called my brother and he informed me that his son already had three or four skateboards but that another one would be welcome. So much for the perfect present! Now I am left with a last minute shopping trip to supplement the previously purchased not-so-perfect gifts.

As I refuse to buy the video games and movies that they request on the grounds that nobody needs yet another reason to park on the couch and not move, I am on my own as far as gifts are concerned. Besides, half of the movies they want haven’t been released on DVD yet. That small technicality doesn’t prevent them from asking, though.

I spent a good portion of last Saturday wandering through the toy aisles before settling on the aforementioned skateboards. Now I face another trip into the land of toys for boys who are too big for trucks and too little for the thumping music of teens.

I have decided to move my niece’s birthday from September to February. She is the littlest of the bunch and doesn’t quite understand why everybody except her gets a present. I have had enough of her feeling left out. When you are only five or six or seven it is a long time between February and September. So this year she won’t have to wait.

In addition to shopping, the February birthdays are an excuse to bake. I find something very soothing about beating eggs and butter into oblivion. Somehow being covered in flour makes the tensions of the work week disappear. Plus there is nothing like the feeling of sugar shock from licking one too many beaters.

I had planned to try a new cake recipe that sounded promising. The pictures on the front of various women’s magazines make even the most mundane concoction look irresistible. Anything with the word, “chocolate” in it has got to be good. I do think I’ll omit the Valentine hearts in the picture and frost it with ordinary icing. Maybe I could make skateboards instead of hearts?

My husband wanted me to make a recipe he had found that involved chocolate cake and cherry pie filling. A bunch of birthdays is the perfect excuse to try it. By making both cakes I can hedge my bets just in case one or the other turns out yucky. I plan to prepare a couple of cupcakes from each batch of batter so I can tell how bad - or good - the final product will be.

If I haven’t used up all the flour and sugar making cakes, I might make cookies also. Those disappear faster than the cakes do but they aren’t as pretty. I know that is a lot of sweet stuff but it doesn’t do any good to prepare a vegetable tray as nobody will eat anything that contains a single vitamin.

As if the shopping and baking weren’t enough reason to look forward to the February birthdays there is the family get together. It seems we all get together less and less often as the years go by. Birthdays are a great excuse for a visit.

The best thing about the February birthdays is that we celebrate at the end of the month. That can only mean that winter is almost over. March may be a very temperamental month but it does tease us with the occasional warm day. I know this year has been exceptionally warm and sunny but it isn’t enough.

I want it to be warm enough for the snowdrops to open and the early crocus to surprise me with their pastel colors. I want to know which plants have survived the winter and which ones need to be replaced. I want to go outside and play in the dirt. I want sunny days to appear more often than cloudy ones and that can’t happen until after the February birthdays have come and gone. The birthday celebration won’t be complete until I find a decent present to go with those skateboards. I just hope I don’t choose something else they have several of.[[In-content Ad]]