Today is a celebration day at our place; It's my darling hubby's birthday as well as that of a beautiful friend of mine Suze. In our family, birthdays are celebrated with joyous enthusiasm, it's not about the presents - although thoughtful gifts are always presented, it's about family, friends and to be honest CAKE!! That's right, in our house the cake is always the main attraction. The discussion about the birthday cake can go on for months, my eldest son H, begins thinking about his next birthday cake, while eating this years centrepiece and he has done so since he was 3 (he's now 8). My toddler JJ had the word 'cake' as one of his first 10 words, and although he has only had 2 birthdays to date, can sing happy birthday and blow out candles like a professional. Today he's off to playgroup to make daddy a 'cake' in the sandpit, which his carers say he's been practising for the last 2 months. Missy Moo is only 4 months so she's yet to experience the delights of cake, but I've been pinning ideas for her first birthday cake, like a woman possessed!
Before the days of Pintrest, my cake obsession was fed through the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book. Remember. The absolute joy and delight of pouring over the pages of the book and dreaming about the Train Cake, with it's doughnut wheels and Jam roll funnel, or the little Log Cabin with the chocolate finger biscuit shingles or the Princess Castle with sherbet cone turrets. We all had favourites. Some were made late at night and presented the next day then enjoyed with gusto, others eluded our parents cake making patience and remained childhood dreams. My own children love choosing their cakes as much as I did and each year I love the ceremony of cake choosing and preparation, the creation of the much anticipated marvel, the presentation to the birthday boy or girl and the enthusiastic devouring.
Last night I handed over the more sophisticated version of the Women's Weekly cake book (Classic Cakes) to Mr J and enjoyed watching him with his cup of tea, drooling over the wonderful options that each page provided. Each page turn was met with "oooooh that looks good" or " I think I found it" or "naaaahhhh this one!" In the end he settled on a Black Forrest Cake, which I'm off to bake shortly. But his enthusiasm was contagious. In those moments he was a boy again, dreaming of rockets and racing car tracks and volcanos made from sugar and food colouring.
What a beautiful analogy for how we should approach all decisions in life. With the same sense of joy and wonder, the same limitless imagination and enthusiasm. We should all get to choose our "cake" whenever we can. The idiom "You can't have your cake and eat it too" is ridiculous if you think about it. You can have it and then eat it. But then you have to choose another. There's much debate about how grammatically that sentence should be structured for "you can't eat your cake and have it to" does capture the dilemma that when faced with two options that are mutually exclusive sometimes you have to make a choice. But don't let that frighten you from choosing the biggest, most glorious, calorie laden choice and then devouring it with a big cookie monster grin. Yes you won't have it anymore, but the memory will live long and the opportunity to dream about and choose the next "cake" still remains. I figure, if I go by average stats I have about 40 birthday cakes left to choose for myself and many, many more to create for those I love. So my challenge to you is this, if Life is Like a Cake - then devour it like the Cookie Monster.
Images via Pintrest
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