S'more time, please

That's all I ask. More time. More time to finish making my own birthday cake, more time to sweep the rice off the floor, more time to wash the dishes, to play at the park, to go camping, to learn the words to that song stuck in my head, to sit and have tea with a friend, to take a shower, to remember how amazing and fun small children really are....
Yesterday was my birthday. My kids were looking forward to it, as they'd helped Daddy make a surprise gift for me and had been counting down the days on the calendar. Mainly, I think they wanted to eat cake.
With my birthday on a Monday, I knew going into it that it was going to be a pretty normal day. You know, life with kids, but with a special party at the end. I was looking forward to making my own birthday cake so I could try something new that I wouldn't necessarily have the excuse to make otherwise. Never mind that I waited until the last minute, as usual, and had to settle for my 3rd choice cake. It was still my choice and was going to be good.
The kids enjoyed helping mix the ingredients and were excited to see the three cake layers sitting on the counter, although, weren't able to understand why we couldn't yet dig in. I planned to finish it up during their "rest" time, chill it in the fridge during afternoon play time at the park, and have it sitting beautifully before us after dinner. Unfortunately, I was short on an important ingredient. Why haven't I learned to thoroughly read directions and look for all ingredients even when I think I have them? I couldn't exactly run to the store by myself so I had to wait until after nap time.
I'll skip all the fun we had when my daughter fell in the parking lot of the store, hurt her knee and screamed until I had all kids seated in one of those grotesquely huge pink plastic butterfly-shaped steering-wheeled carts, with which I proceeded to practically knock down an entire display of paper towels standing about 9 feet high and a rack of canned beans, and move right to finishing the cake at home.
My daughter hadn't taken a nap during the prescribed rest time, had remembered her knee was scraped and bloody, was probably hungry, definitely sweaty and dirty (this was to be the no-matter-what-happens-it's-bath night since they hadn't bathed after our state park trip on Saturday) when we got home from the store. Not good under any circumstances, but especially considering I was trying to assemble some sort of healthy dinner (cereal?) while preparing two separate frostings for a layer cake intended to be eaten in about 30 minutes that really required a few hours additional chill time, feeding the baby, and directing my son to stop whatever it was he was doing.
Amazingly, I kept up with things until the kids had been fed, I'd put the baby to bed, listened to my kids melt down during their bath with Daddy, and come back to the cake. Then I realized it wasn't going to happen.
At the end of this long day, we celebrated my birthday with oven-toasted s'mores. Felt sort of like Mr. Bean's Christmas sandwiches. (Except my cake wasn't thrown out the window so I still need to finish it once it firms up again from being left out too long in the heat when I attempted to pour on the ganache a while ago.) Happily, the kids ate these as if they'd never heard of birthday cake and were thrilled to help me open birthday cards from faraway, loving family.
After celebrating, my husband put the kids to bed while I ran the intimidating tower of laundry, created by my not-so-keen on toilet-training child, downstairs to wash and rode my bike to the video store to get my free birthday rental. Which we didn't watch because we were too interested in the Olympics.
I don't know when I'll have the time to finish my cake, eat it, watch my movie, wash the dishes, or do all the other things I'd like, but I did manage to find time just now to remember that the people who loved me yesterday on my birthday probably still love me today, that my kids really had fun driving that big shopping cart, eating s'mores, and keeping a little birthday secret with their dad, that I enjoyed some fresh nighttime air on my bike, and that if days were filled with all the time I wanted they probably wouldn't be nearly as interesting and the changes we see in our children wouldn't seem nearly as amazing. Hmm. Happy birthday!