Monday, January 17, 2011

The Age of Politically Correctness and a 3rd Bday Party

My Soon-to-be Three Year Old's Birthday Party
and the Quest to Keep her Cake P.C.

Next month my two-yr old turns three. We were all set to have a wonderful Wall*E themed party. I bought the cake pan, the official icing colors, the robot cut outs for the kids to color, the toy centerpieces, and had even contacted Socks In Pockets (our friendly literary clown. She takes your theme and reads the kids a bunch of story/picture books around that theme and tells them jokes,and etc, and the kids just LOVE her.).

Well, we all know the desires of an almost three-year old are subject to change at whim. My daughter woke up one day, recently, and declared she would have a Princess and the Frog Pajama and Paint Nails Party. Okay. Great. Perfect. Lovely. At least I can fund the new theme by selling the Wall*E items on EBay and in a yard sale.

Only, Princess Tiana apparently is NOT as popular as some of her predecessors. Darn it. I am a very frugal deal hunter and the Tiana stuff is so scarce that when you do find it, they are very proud of their inventory and charge an arm and a leg. ($6 for a table cover PLUS $4 in Shipping???? Really??$10 to get a disposable cheap plastic table cover? Yeah.. we will use green wrapping paper and decorate it with purple princessy accents, thank you very much!) I did find a Tiana music CD for $6 and some clearance Tiana napkins. I am going to decorate with purple and green. I bought some Tiana themed Valentines and plan to cut the pictures of the characters out of those and glitter glue them on some cups I bought on clearance at like 35 cents a pack.. BUT I DIGRESS!!!


Luckily for me, I had found some really great Tiana themed items on super clearance over the past year. These items have "lived" in my gift/things to sell on Ebay closet, so I am able to give my princess all Tiana themed gifts...

So.. onto planning the cake. This should have been a piece of well.. cake. I found a Tiana "Barbie" doll half off at Target. Perfect! I will make one of those cakes with the doll in the center.. you know, the kind where the cake part is kind of bundt shape and is made to look like the doll's dress. Wow! I found a WHOLE Princess and the Frog action figure on sale at a local Disney Store. These are perfectly sized to go around the bottom of the cake.

Seeing as though the two-year old has decided to rethink her birthday and make it go this direction, I decided to double check what flavor cake she wanted. After a day and a half of going back and forth from chocolate, to pink, to brown, to red (obviously, colors are acceptable flavor options now), she finally settled on a Tiana cake that is red flavored. Not cherry or anything like that... RED! Ok, done! Glad to have that over with, right?

Wrong. The party is next month. I was going over some details with my husband when it hits me. If we are to have a cake that is in the shape of the princess, herself.. well.. it doesn't need to be red, does it? Wouldn't that look a bit gory or graphic? Like we are cutting into her and the cake is red.. that is just plain hideous. So, fine. We will go with an actual flavor: Chocolate. "Yeah, that's great. Because Tiana is African-American," My husband says. Oh, crud. Does that make a statement, too? Is that un-PC? My husband says, "Just go with Vanilla. Oh, wait.. no.. don't do that, either. Yellow cake it is." At this point, I am throwing my hands up in the air.


This was supposed to be a super easy party to plan. I thought when my soon to be birthday girl switched from Wall*E to Tiana it would be an easier party, with easier to find character-themed items. She wants everyone to come over in their jammies and eat chicken nuggets and get their nails painted. Cheap, Easy, Perfect.

Except the items are hard to find, and the cake is driving me nuts at this point.

Then, it hits me. I know just what to do for this cake. I don't know why it was so hard to come to this solution. It is perfect. AND perfectly PC for a Princess and the Frog Tiana shaped cake. We will make it GREEN flavored!

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