Author's note: Mildly belated, but I wished to honor the birthday of one of our favorite hobbits somehow!

T.A. 2891 (SR 1291)

It was a crisp, blustery sort of day, and very unusually cool for the middle of September. In fact, the weather was far more suitable for November the 22nd! Many of the cheerful hobbits going about their everyday business of tending their gardens, sweeping their porches, or going to the marketplace for food were clad in a heavier sort of fabric than that which they usually donned in the late summer, and some even needed their overcoats or cloaks! Bungo Baggins was among the latter sort, for he absolutely detested temperatures in the low range, especially when it was supposed to be quite warm! Brass buttons held his dark brown waistcoat very firmly together, a simple task for which the hobbit inside the waistcoat was most grateful.

Bungo Baggins might have refused to leave the warmth but for the fact that it was a very important occasion indeed. A year ago today, their son Bilbo had come into the world, kicking and gurgling contentedly, as though he were very pleased to find himself first introduced to the cozy hearth of his father's creation of a home, named Bag End, and the verdant fields and hills and trees of the Shire! He had been a rather small baby in the length department, but thankfully he had been born properly plump!

A small family celebration of the tiny lad's first birthday was in order. Thus Bungo had embarked upon a short walk to fetch a cake from the baker, Orlo Tasslefoot, that he had placed an order for on the thirteenth. While he was off fetching the cake, Belladonna would watch and care for Bilbo, greet her parents Gerontius and Adamanta as well as his own brother Bingo. It would not be a grand affair, simply a small and enjoyable party involving their closest family members. It was a relief to Bungo that none of Belladonna's siblings would be present. Two Tooks would be enough; he certainly did not need a whole battalion of them acting drunkenly rambunctious and breaking up the crockery with their shenanigans, or worse, planting notions of things such as adventure in an impressionable hobbit-child's mind!

Bungo smiled as he continued the walk towards the bakers, imagining the journey back in which he would be carrying a large parcel containing a chocolate cake covered in very thick frosting. Hopefully the young Bilbo would enjoy this! Perhaps he might even opt to eat more than he wore on his clothes and face for a change! He might even abstain from throwing it halfway across the kitchen! He did eat some food, and babies did have the propensity to use it as a means of practicing their throwing, but it was always pity to see good food go to waste all over the floor.

~~~~~

Back home, Belladonna was having a very interesting time trying to prepare the party. She was epitomizing the multitasker at the moment, for she was baking a pie in the oven, cooking some vegetables to go alongside the rabbit she planned to serve at the party on the stove top, and attempting to get Bilbo dressed. She had just bathed her young son and she had turned her back on him just a moment so she could check her own appearance in the looking-glass. Her son had taken the opportunity to crawl out of the bathing area and down the smial's hallway towards the kitchen, gurgling in the talk of faunts all the way. She had been worried at first when she had realized when he was no longer sitting on the bathing mat, but when her keen ears heard him in the hallway she had simply grabbed his tiny shirt, trousers, and undergarments and then run to catch him. 

She had caught up to Bilbo in no time- but unfortunately, he had already managed to find his way to the area by the fireplace, which had not been swept! His skin, a clean and rosy pink just minutes before, was smudged with the dark grey of ashes! Belladonna had attempted to bring him back to his bath, but Bilbo had begun crying, iindicating his displeasure at the prospect.   Besides, she was running short on time, so she had started the cooking and then began the attempt to get the fauntling dressed.

Bilbo, it seemed, had decided he was not very keen on the prospect of clothes. When his mother had attempted to get his shirt on, the fauntling began to roll around in her lap, flailing and howling sand vehemently shaking his head. In fact, the fight was a very strong one indeed for one so minute as Bilbo!

"Bilbo, let me dress you!" Belladonna said. "Stop it." The child did not stop. Sighing, she placed down the shirt and began to put on his trousers. This was met with little more kindness than the shirt. The arms stopped flailing, but the short, chubby legs began to kick.

"Oh, goodness gracious me, Bilbo! You must be dressed for your birthday! You will see your grandfather and your grandmother and your Uncle Bingo! You will like your surprise too!"  She and Bungo had placed an order for a rather elaborate and tasty cake, and her husband  was off to fetch it at this very moment.

The kicking increased in speed. At the same time, Belladonna could hear a sizzling coming from the direction of what was to be among the evening repast. She looked to see the water from a pot bubbling over the brim and onto the surface of the stove.

"Drat the water..." Belladonna moaned to herself as she placed Bilbo, still wearing his birthday suit, onto the floor and rushed to remove the pot from the sizzling fire before enough water overflowed to douse the flames! Some of the fuel had already been wet by the contents of the pot.

"Oh dear... this delays supper some more..." Belladonna lamented.

~~~~

"The records say you wanted your cake ready for the twenty-fifth," Orlo Tasslefoot insisted. He held out a piece of parchment.

"Oh, blast and bebother, it does!" Bungo lamented as he stared at the parchment in horror. There was the number 23 in his very own handwriting! "What in the Shire was I thinking? How did I write the second 2 as a 5? Why did this have to happen today? Bungo was greatly ruing not doublechecking on the order between the thirteenth and the present day; otherwise they might have evaded this mess!

"Is there any way you could make one today? Please? My son is turning one."

Orlo gave the builder of the luxurious Bag End an apologetic sort of look. "I truly am sorry, but I have about a dozen orders I must complete today, and one of those cakes is supposed to be large enough to feed seventy hobbits. There is truly no way for me to accommodate your son's cake. My apprentice is visiting his family in Budgeford, or I might have been able to finagle with te day enough to get your order in. I can get it to you perhaps tomorrow at the earliest."

"But tomorrow will no longer be the 22nd, but the 23rd," Bungo pointed out, feeling his stomach sink. The cake was one of the more important aspects of a birthday party, and it seemed that this one would be devoid of even the rather small one he had ordered! Ought he to just cancel, and then return to Bag End to break the dreadful tidings to Belladonna? She would be rather unhappy; they had had the perfect cake planned out for weeks!

~~~

At this particular junction in time, mother and father were asking the same question. "What is a hobbit to do when preparations for the birthday party of a darling one-year-old son go awry and relatives are on the way at this very moment?"