All young ones have their growing pains, I know. Fortunately, Josie never really showed us Terrible Two’s – oh, she had a few Nightmare Days of Three, and now we’re in the Testy Try-Me Teens, but none of the normal hubbub that usually accompanies two.

Simmer, on the other hand, is my problem child. At first it grew beautifully, zooming all the way to 350-plus posts before the warning signs: refusal to open files, back-talking error codes and finally, total tech meltdown. I stood firm, doling out tough love and new codes, and we did sort it out, but also learned this: much the way a kid sleeps in too-loose footie pajamas and wakes up in them too tight, Simmer has outgrown its clothes. I believe we’re headed for a redesign, something a bit bigger but not too big, just enough space for growth spurts and tantrums and a lot of good eats.

Please know that I appreciate every one of you out there, from early house blog readers to those first dropping in today. You’ve made raising a blog more fun. Some days I look at posts and think, oh dear, that was supposed to be funny and it’s sad, and that one’s sort of sad but giggly, and that, well that was just plain spastic. And then you show up anyway, and keep reading, and it occurs to me that a sort of controlled babbling sound isn’t so bad on a blog, not if people connect.

In one of my favorite movies, 1962′s The Music Man, wily Professor Harold Hill (Robert Preston) inspires a reluctant barbershop quartet by telling them “singing is just sustained…talking…” Of course he sings that line, and I sing like a dead frog, but point taken; if singing is sustained talking, blogging is just sustained typing. Some songs are better than others, but gosh darn it, people keep typing and people keep reading, and the next thing you know there’s 76 trombones and a parade down Main Street.

Yeesh. Two sentences too far but you got that, right? Wait – I am reading it again to see if I got it.

All typing and trombones aside, thank you for following me into the kitchen and on the page for lo these two years. I know you’ll join me in my birthday wish for Simmer: a redesign free of glitches and growing pains. May it emerge as a well-groomed, obedient blog trained only to dispense madeleines and serve coffee. Now why didn’t I wish that for Josie?

Oh, look! While I was yammering, someone brought in cupcakes.  These are for my dear mother-in-law, Marsha…
…who shares a September birthday with Simmer, prompting us to use her cake as co-celebrant last year, too.

What’s your favorite birthday cake? Does your family have an heirloom recipe that gets baked no matter what, or a ten-layer confection from a special bakery? Celebrate Simmer’s 2nd birthday by sharing your favorite in the comments – and again, thanks for hanging around.