I am planning a cake.
A wonderful cake!
I get more excited for birthdays and holidays I think than my kids sometimes.
I lay awake and dream and plan and work out details...
One year for Matthew's birthday I made him a Candyland cake...little starburst were the colored pieces for the game board. It came filled with a lollipop land and all kinds of wonders.
For Summer's 1st birthday I tried my hand at icing a cake like a pro and did it in little dollops of tulip cupped sized icing all over her little duck cake. It took over an hour.
There have been alligator cupcake cakes, and Barney cakes and Clifford cakes, and Dalmatian cakes. Worm in dirt cupcakes and princess cakes...
So this year Jake is 14. I was reading articles about what to make for a teenage boy. The article ACTUALLY said something like this.... (this of course is verbatim because I no longer have the article) If it is for a teenage girl...glam it up...star and glitter is the word. blah blah blah. If it is for a teenage boy...forget about it. Just have a cake. He will just want to eat it. What is important is a gift and having his friends over.
I think my heart broke a little.
I later found a cool looking ipod cake and I'm trying to learn how to make fondant for the first time. It is going to be awesome.
(Note..this picture and cake is NOT mine...I found it on the internet!)
But here is the whole point people.
I was talking to Mike.
Never.
NEVER, have my children really given ME the satifaction at that precise moment I needed on their birthday. I always felt a little sad. The moment was rushed through, or ignored, or not enought praise was worthy of my effort, lol. BUT...
BUT....!!!!
A seed was planted....!
And usually.....USUALLY...
there came a time later....
like a sleeper cell....
where out of the blue, Matthew would say..."remember Mom, when you made that AWESOME candyland cake. Can you make that every year???" or or.... Jake will tell his friends.... "My mom makes the BEST angel food cake ever...it's my favorite". or Summer will tell people "I had a PRINCESS cake and it was AMAZING". And I know....I KNOW that it was so worth it. And it WAS important.
And that article is wrong. Because whether they show it or not, it is something they will carry with them as a memory from growing up. Somebody loved me enough to do this for me, and made me feel special.
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