Our birthday girl is another year older.

Every one of us has now celebrated a birthday in Singapore. It's hard to believe we are just one month shy of a year now in Singapore.

Because everything is still closed due to COVID -19, we couldn't go to Universal Studios with her best friend like MsC had been planning for months. When asked for a Nintendo Birthday cake I had to deliver. It was not an exact replica, but a not-insubstantial amount of effort was required.

To be honest, the thought of no birthday party, no friends, no birthday outing, no birthday shopping expedition was really sad. I put off planning till just the day before.

I had been on the look out for birthday elements for the last month or more, so I was prepared. We're mostly ordering food online and just going to the grocery store once a week if we can't get things. I had picked up a small present in the grocery store and Jonathan had ordered a big gift online. We did pay double regular price for the gift due to stock shortages.

I had ordered and set aside a big stack of origami paper for our birthday craft time. I had bought some jellybean packages and hid them in the back of the closet. I had found and stashed marshmallows and Rice Crispies. It was the first time I had found both of these at the same time in Singapore.

We used them to mix up a batch of Rice Crispie Squares. Turns out this treat is totally a North American thing. We shared some with MsC's friends by dropping off goodie bags "contactlessly." They had no idea what it was, but exclaimed that it was "delicious".

Totally agree. I'd been seriously craving these rice crispie squares. I may have been more excited than the kids.

The actual cake was a bit harder. First off it needed to be a rectangle, because she had drawn out exactly the design for her cake. I did have a loaf pan. She wanted it to look like a row of Nintendo controllers.

We also needed it to be gluten free and dairy free. I found a rice flour based recipe and converted the dairy to coconut milk and nut butter. I considered trying to get a vegan gluten free cake ordered from somewhere, but most cake shops are closed due to the "Circuit Breaker" (essential services only) in Singapore, and they also cost a million dollars.

I could not get hold of Icing Sugar or Food Colouring. I ended up with an expensive health food substitute for Icing Sugar; it still tasted pretty sweet. I also had to try making homemade food colouring for the first time.

• Purple - Boiled red cabbage and reduced the water down.
• Blue - Took half the reduced cabbage water and added a pinch of baking soda.
• Red - Steeped a Berry tea bag in a very small amount of water.
• Yellow - I was going to use Turmeric, but I forgot and used Orange Juice.
• Green - Used a few drops of Pandan flavouring. It's bright green.
• Black - Nope, I tried and tried.
• Chocolate - My "black" had cocoa powder added to it to darken it up and that's as close as I could get.

The cake tasted great. The icing was a bit too sweet. And it did somewhat resemble Nintendo controllers of different colours as requested.

MsI at 2.5 years old didn't really understand about birthdays and I totally forgot to pick up a little gift for her. Poor thing. When she saw MsC's presents, she asked, "Did Santa come?" and then shouted, "We NEED to know what's inside?"

We had a technology focused birthday. MsC got a Nintendo Switch Light for a present. We also bought "Just Dance" for the family Nintendo Switch on the main TV and had a Dance Party in the living room - well us girls did. I wonder how many neighbours watched that. We made some treats in the kitchen; and tried to make some new origami by following YouTube video tutorials. There was a lot of Nintendo time, and then we wrapped up the day with an after dinner Zoom party online.

MsC had written out invitations for her friends with an Agenda included. After launching her zoom call and dealing with the technical difficulties the others were having with connections and passwords, we sang the Birthday Song and MsC blew out the candles. MsI almost got to those candles first; At bedtime MsI cried because she wished she could have blown out the candles.

The guests ate their goodie bag treats while we ate cake. The girls did some online Quiz together, and then MsC shared her screen and they ended the party by watching the Disney Fireworks. The only thing I contributed was talking another mom through logging on, and giving MsC a 15 minutes warning that time was getting short.

I can't get over how well MsC managed the meeting. Even wrapping things up by thanking the girls for coming to her Zoom Birthday Party and apologizing to those who had some challenges logging in. She did as good or better than I could have. No idea where she learned all that.

It's not how I would have planned the day, if things were normal, but I think it was a pretty good day. I have promised to take MsC for a birthday repeat at Universal when it one day opens again.