4th birthday!

So, it was my son's 4th birthday today which went as well as could be expected. He got loads of great presents, nothing hideous, and saw lots of family. It all got too much for him and my daughter once each during the course of the day, which was pretty much as expected, and he's asleep now, exhausted from the day, while Daddy's putting our daughter to bed. Then we can relax!
As promised, a picture of the train cake, made this time by my own fair hands, based on a design from a Jane Asher cake book:

It is very difficult to get the balance right with a birthday cake. We don't usually go overboard on sugar and they never have sweets, but for a one-off I didn't want to be a spoilsport. I left out the food colouring completely (the original Jane Asher cake was green!) as I didn't think that added anything to the enjoyment factor, and toned down the use of sweets to decorate quite considerably. It is tricky to make fun-shaped cakes without colouring and decoration though.
And so I'm musing on my son's birth and how different it was to my daughter's. One of the things which sticks in my mind the most is how lovely it was to be in bed half an hour after he was born, with him in the crook of one arm, feeding, while eating beans on toast with the other hand. It was the first meal I had actually enjoyed for 9 months and the first time I hadn't felt nauseous in that same time and it was heavenly! I can recommend a homebirth wholeheartedly.