Beanie Queenie Turns 4!

When she was born I had all sorts of good intentions about calling her "Laney". I would call her by her whole first name only occasionally, and then it would be pronounced "Eh-léna" like my friend Elena or like Catherine Zeta-Jones in The Mask of Zorro. She'd be the little blonde version with a yellow rose in her teeth. Hmm. And probably a bit shorter as it turns out.

Anyway, it never crossed my mind that she'd be called "Eeee-layna" so much by everyone that pretty soon that's what she'd be.

That is, when she's not "Bean".

I've tried to recall just how she became "Bean", but the memories are fuzzy. Maybe it was because she was 23 inches long when she was born and looked a bit like, well, a bean pole. Maybe it was because she was a "coffee bean" and woke up promptly at 5 am every.single.morning whether it was Sunday or not. Maybe it was because she was a "jumping bean", crawling at 4 months and walking/climbing at 9. Maybe it was that "bean pod" sleep sack that she wore to bed every night and could still crawl AND walk in!



At any rate, the nicname stuck like a bad toupée and she still introduces herself as "Bean, 4 years old". I get a lot of weird looks for that, especially when we're out in public and Emmy has a sudden need to introduce the family to random strangers in the check out line.

"HI! I'm EMMY!! I'm 5, and this is my brother Joshua. He's 7. This is my little sister Bean, she's 4, and that's my baby sister, Evelyn. She's ZERO."

"What's her name?!", they'll ask, trying to be polite and wondering if they're just hard of hearing or if I just have a cruel sense of humor: name the rest of the children lovely, normal sounding names BUT HER.

Of course, the silliness grows exponentially when little ones learn how to rhyme. Joshua Boshua, Emmy Slemmy, Beanie Queenie, Mama Quama (???), Grandma Pajama, and Grandpa Campa all answer to their Sesame Street names without hesitation now.

So yes, Beanie Queenie became a very grown up four years old a couple of weeks ago.

Her birthday last year was a total, complete bit of a flop. I didn't even make her a cake.

At all.

It was... not my best mommy moment, I'll admit it.

This year I was determined to do better. I was going to have the BEST cake EVER! The ingredients had all been purchased days beforehand (yes, all 9 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter!), the totally awesome yellow tutu swimsuit that she'd flip over (that definitely won't be fitting her anytime soon) and plans made for family to gather for pizza, cake and ice cream that evening.

And then.... reality hit. Emmy started out the morning of Elayna's birthday puking her little guts out, I quickly discovered that I had made two layers of the cake with 9 inch pans when the recipe was for 6 inch pans, and not quite enough ingredients to make a second batch of batter (who needs green, blue, and purple, right? ...RIGHT?!). By noon I was ready to throw in the towel, except for that cute little blondie that insisted on spending her whole birthday in the kitchen with me, "helping". How could I turn that down?

(recipe found here)

We plugged along, somehow made it to the store and back in time to continue baking and frosting before dinner time (including the 2.5 dozen cupcakes thanks to all the extra batter), and despite a little mishap where I threw the camera into the side of the cake, it actually turned out all right. I just have one thing to say about that rainbow cake:

NEVER.AGAIN.

Seriously, if y'all are thinking about giving it a go: DON'T!!!

Or at least, for the love of all things sane, MODIFY the recipe! Take a few white cake mix boxes, whip 'em up, throw some food coloring in, and stack those things up! The frosting was good, though... NO! Resist the white chocolate buttercream and just make up some white frosting, for pity's sake!



Okay. I feel better now. Moving on.


Despite the excitement and joy here, we will have to wait till next year since it is way too big and we are way too far away from the store I bought it at to exchange it. I don't know, but I get the feeling that if we just hide it till her next birthday we'll still get a pretty good reaction from reopening it!

It's hard to believe she's already 4 years old. She's still my little sunshine girl.

Happy Birthday Bean!

Four years old now!

I just love black and whites!!!

See my flowers?

Bye now!


Oh, and by the way, forget everything I just said about all of her nicnames. Besides being Bean, which I suspect to some people she always will be, she is simply, "Layna".