Happy 5th Bday, Titus

by: Shawnda

I truly can’t believe our “little” Titus-boy is 5 years old! But he is, and we have the cake to prove it. :o) This is really the first year that Titus has been “into” his birthday. He’s been planning and talking about his birthday for the entire month (b/c he knows his birthday is in November). His number one request was to have a friend spend the night.

On Wednesday night, we got one last 4 year old cuddle from him and put him to bed. Then we went to work on the verandah putting up a few decorations for the morning. On Thursday (24th) morning, as soon as the first rays of sunshine shone through the woven bamboo walls (at half past 5, mind you), he was awake and asking, “Am I 5 now?” :o) We delayed him for a few minutes while I snuck out to put his presents on the table. He was all smiles and excitement as he opened his presents of some new matchbox cars and a little flashlight.  After a round of “Happy Birthday to You,” the kids were off to school and I started on the icing for his cake. Having no powdered sugar, I made an icing that starts with a flour base. Don’t laugh, it’s actually really good. But....it is supposed to be mixed with an electric mixer, on high for 7-8 minutes! Yeah, I did it by hand and MAN was my arm tired. I even had to have Eric relieve me a couple of times during those 7-8 minutes. :o) After tasting it to make sure it was edible (ha) I put it aside to wait for the afternoon (that’s another good thing about this recipe - it’s to be kept at room temp - don’t have to worry about it melting). Anyway, so I quickly mixed up some dough for the cheese-less pizzas I planned to make for lunch and then headed up to volunteer at the kindy. Titus gave all of his classmates a little lollipop to celebrate (which they loved) and we headed home for lunch.

As is their usual after-school custom, Titus and Lexi came home, deposited their backpacks, grabbed a quick drink, and then headed off to play with a couple of friends. I got the cheese-less pizzas ready and went outside to call them. I found out that while I was cooking the pizzas, they had been eating laplap at one of their friends’ houses :o) Well, so much for a “special” birthday lunch from mom...they already got what they wanted! Haha. They would much rather have laplap than “American food” any day - crazy kids! So Eric and I enjoyed the little pizzas and the kids each had a piece when they came home 30 minutes later. :o)

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to make Titus’ cake. Now just a few months ago this would have been no problem, but due to a sad turn of events, our “dutch oven” (a big aluminum pot with sand in the bottom that we used on the stovetop), is out of commission - I burnt a hole in the bottom. So, I asked Abu Mommy (literally translated, “Grandma Mommy” - the name our kids made up for the woman Eric and I call “Mama” here in the village) if I could make the cake in her outdoor kitchen. I mixed up the batter and Titus and I headed down there while Lexi was napping. When we got there, we had several ladies giving us advice on how to cook it. We ended up cooking it like they sometimes cook laplap in a saucepan. We put a laplap leaf (like a banana leaf) inside of a saucepan, spread oil on it, and then poured the batter in. Abu Mommy made a fire on top of some stones, waited till it burned down and then we placed the saucepan on top of the hot stones (with several more of them on top of the saucepan lid). It turned out perfectly! I was so excited (and relieved) that it worked! Titus was just beside himself with excitement...he kept wanting to sneak tastes. I took the cake home, stuck it in our fridge to cool it off, and got to work on dinner preparations. Titus helped me “decorate” the cake with the icing (cut out a “5” from plastic, stuck it on the cake, sprinkled some cocoa over it, took the plastic “5” off, and “VOILA” - we had a great 5th birthday cake in the village!)

For Titus’ big celebration, we had our village family and Titus’ best buddy, Rensly (he’s his “brother” in our village family) over for dinner. We had rice, chicken wings, soup, pineapple and cake. It was a good dinner and we all had a nice time visiting and laughing together. I had Eric show a few videos of Titus from the last 5 years on his laptop. We enjoyed walking down memory lane and they all enjoyed seeing Titus when he was a baby. After goodbye handshakes and “Happy Birthday” wishes, the rest of the family went home, but Rensly stayed to spend the night. Titus and Rensly read some books while we set up their beds (slept on the floor in the “other room”) and then watched a short video before they were off to bed. No giggling or talking that night. All three of the kids were “plumb tuckered out” after all of the excitement of the day. Definitely different than any birthday experience we’ve had thus far...but fun none-the-less. A special day for a special boy.

Happy 5th birthday, little man. We thank God daily for the blessing He gave us in you.