punk's party

I have been somebody's mom for over a decade. Actually when I think about it - it's been longer than that - but for all practical purposes, I'm rounding down.

To celebrate this milestone we hosted a Lego birthday for our architecturally inclined eldest child. Sounds like a simple plan - right?

Wrong.

If you are three years old this is a simple plan - buy the duplo themed plates from the Lego store, put out some Bob-the-Builder sets and you are ready to go.

But Punk is 10 - TEN - and this was not so easy.




First we tried to bake the lego cake - which took three tries as it is - I don't know whose anal-retentive mom frosted that "homemade cake" here - but poor Punk doesn't have a mother with the same mental disorder. And to compound this problem - the icing is deadly. Look at that thing. In order to make any frosting "Lego Red" or even "Lego Blue" you have to put enough food coloring in there to give an elephant cancer. And the bitter aftertaste of red #40 is enough to completely negate any sweetness the cake may have originally had - even for Punk, which is saying something.

So then we decided to try the Lego ice cube thing. For $15, Punk's dad got a little ice cube tray that would make 8 mini-legos. Which would have been great if we only needed 8 ice cubes - or even if they would have held their shape in the freezer. Unfortunately, all we got was perfectly formed frozen legos, that turned into unrecognizable heaps in the freezer.

Eventually we worked a few things out . . . Lego candy from the Mall of America, a relay race to put together a Lego truck, guessing how many legos were stuffed into a blown up balloon, a Lego Punk on a bakery cake - and water balloons - lots of water balloons - which had nothing to do with Legos, but made it so nobody cared anyway.

At the end of the day, Punk said he had a great time - and he got to spend a few extra hours with "Lama Face" which he hadn't seen in months - and that he said, was the best present of all.