I wake up in the morning generally around 7:00. That is only if I can fall back asleep after William leaves for work in the morning. At seven in the morning a quiet shuffling is going on in my house. My youngest child is usually awake first. He will walk quietly down the hall to go to the bathroom and then announce to me that he is hungry. Not long after David's announcement, my oldest child will get up and she will tell me that she had some crazy dream, or what she read in her latest Harry Potter adventure novel. My middle child, Elizabeth, will then get up and lay down in bed with me to cuddle for a minute while her eyes adjust to the idea of being open. My morning routine has not altered for quite some time. The only thing that has changed is what the kids talk about, but the ritual has not changed. It's comforting, and I often wonder how long it will last.
Sydney turned ten this last week. She is a tween!! When I reflect on my morning routine with my children it really makes me gasp to think that it's been ten years since Sydney was born. It's amazing how time flies. My parents often remarked how time speeds up as you get older and as a young adult I couldn't wait to be grown up and be "Free". Wow, I was seriously delusional. But time does speed up and I don't see it slowing down, I see it marching right across my face. Time is aging my daughter into the preteen stage and having her tell me that I am crazy.
Sydney is turning into a remarkable young person. She is extremely clever, and very smart. She is great at math, which seems to come very easily to her. She loves the scriptures, going to church, and going to her activities with her friends. But, underneath the beautiful and smart exterior there seems to be a storm brewing. I am anticipating the day when I wake up and hear from her charming face that I am a horrible mother and that I don't know anything. I hope I will be prepared. I hear that I am not liked daily from my five year old son. Usually when he is mad at me for not getting his way, I am used to that. In a way I believe he is training me for the day the girls tell me that they hate me.
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Well maybe I will be lucky and my kids won't hate me. A girl can dream can't she.
Well I decided to make Sydney a cake for her birthday, like I do for all the kids. Sydney and her cousin Katy have birthdays only days apart so they decided to share a cake this year. They chose to have a Harry Potter themed cake. No big surprise there. The problem was that all the cakes that I saw required a much higher skill set than I have. But I decided I could try something new. What's the worst thing that could happen? You could have a cake look like crap, but it always tastes good.
So after I searched through a lot of cakes online, I decided to try a spell book with a wand, scarf glasses and a golden snitch for props.
This would require me to work with something completely new. Fondant. I tried the recipe that a friend referred me to. A marshmallow fondant. YUM!! It it made with marshmallows and powdered sugar and shortening. Yup folks that is it. It is terribly messy, because you melt the marshmallows and then knead in the sugar, hence the need for shortening otherwise the marshmallows would stick to your body and you would look like the Ghostbusters after defeating the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Trust me, you still end up looking like that a little anyway. Coloring this fondant is not what I thought it would be like, so the off white color I was looking for turned out to be more like a flesh tone and the book after it was carved turned out looking more like a butt. Yes I had just created a BUTT CAKE for my daughter.
It was tragic. I had William shape two Tootsie Rolls to look like wands, but if you weren't careful it could really look like a butt cake with two long turds. Thank heaven that the snitch turned out okay. I made that from a wooden ball and feathers. I painted the ball gold and attached the feathers by drilling two small holes in the side.
I could not get the the coloring right for the scarf so I threw that idea away all together. I didn't want some blackish looking cloth draped over the butt cake. It would have looked even more disgusting.
So before that tragic morning when my daughter wakes up and looks at me with they eyes of an intolerant teenager I can always look back at the "Butt Cake" and take comfort in the fact that I got my child to eat a butt. Oh yes, you can bet I will rub it in her face too if she gets too snotty with me. That's the way I roll.
Happy Birthday to my baby girl, Sydney.
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