Hi, remember me?

What a week. My wife had to unexpectedly and immediately fly out of town to be with her dad who is gravely ill. While she's been dealing with that nightmare, it's been a relentless week of me and a 2 1/2 year old, and a 6 year old who's 5.

What that means is, a couple of months ago my son decided that he did not want to turn six. He declared that five is the perfect age, and since then would nervously ask me, "IS TODAY MY BIRTHDAY?!" about once a week.

Sadly my wife had to leave the very night before his birthday. She was obviously quite bummed she couldn't be there with him for it, but you gotta do what you gotta do. And what I had to do was make him a kick-ass chocolate cake. (What's that? Was the frosting from scratch? Why yes, it was. For the record, I have no problem with frosting from a can. It's plenty good for your kid.)

We didn't have a big party or anything. It was just me, the two boys and Anthony. Knowing this whole turning six thing was something of a touchy subject, I asked my son how many candles he wanted on his cake.

"How about two?"

"Well, you usually put one candle for each year old you are."

"Oh. Then put six."

"Interesting," I thought to myself. I turned back to take care of the cake.

"Wait! If you put six, then I'll be six. Put five!"

"Okay."

"You said I could have a second fifth birthday, right?"

"It's your birthday, baby. You can have anything you want."

"I want five candles."

It was decided.

We all sang, and he and his brother blew out the five candles. As we whaled on the cake, Anthony asked my son, "So, how old are you now?"

"I'm five... but a little bit six."

I'm fine with that. In fact, it's perfect. My wife didn't really miss him turning six after all.

Well, just a little bit.