You can have your cake and eat it...

So the original raison d'être for this very blog has reached the landmark of two years old. We're not quite sure how this has happened, but that period of time has definitely elapsed since Dylan unceremoniously faceplanted his way into the world. I had the week off, so the celebrations managed to string themselves out from his midweek birthday to his party on Saturday.

Consequently, he's got rather used to cake – well, we couldn't make him wait for his party to let him have some; that would've been evil. His vocabulary has come on leaps and bounds of late, but that monosyllabic offering has been aired regularly ever since he turned two. Except he pronounces it "kayrrr". We think he may actually be a Geordie. Either that, or Paul Smith's north-eastern tones he's heard as a result of us playing the new Maxïmo Park album rather a lot have made their mark.

Cake one... geddit?

For the big day itself, we made a simple Victoria sponge and made it kid-friendly with ready-to-roll icing and sweets. When my parents popped round to give him his presents, we sang happy birthday to him and, somehow or other, he knew that he had to blow out the candles. Clever boy! Not that clever, mind; once it had been cut, he went round the room exhaling on everyone's slice in turn and laughing his arse off. As one does in polite company.

For the party, we pulled out all the stops. As he is mildly obsessed with The Gruffalo at the moment, we made him a Gruffalo cake – or "Baboo kayrrr" as he would have it. We're not sure how the title character of this awesome book has been renamed thus, but that's the world according to Dylan. For the record, the little brown mouse is "Abab", Fox is "Afur", Snake is "Hiiiir" and Owl is, er, "Owl".

By means of another aside, when I bought the Jelly Tots to decorate it with and got chatting with the friendly newsagent we go to for such things, she actually said "A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?" It took every ounce of strength I had not to wax lyrical about terrible tusks, terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. I hope you're proud of me.

Oh help! Oh no! It's our handiwork!

Anyhoo, as soon as he saw me carrying said cakey goodness into the front room and his adoring public, he started singing – by singing, I mean chanting gibberish to a vaguely recognisable tune – happy birthday to himself. Once again, he blew out the candles, applauded himself and, as only the guest of honour at such occasions can get away with doing, grabbed and wolfed down the Gruffalo's 'poisonous wart'.

Little monster!