EASY BAKE MOM

“Happy Birthday my Grand Finale!”

The ritual is the same with all three kids.
Every birthday.
No escape.

My older children roll their eyes, but I know they still enjoy the ritual.

“Eight years ago today…” I begin and then spill out the details of the day that she arrived on this planet. My youngest takes in the story with a warm grin. “I’m so proud of you!” I gushed, “ I can’t believe I made you!”

“Actually,” Cadence pointed out in her usual style, a perfect blend of the harsh truth and her joyful optimism, “God made me. But you grew me.”

Conceding to her wisdom, I agree that it was God’s recipe and an amazing one at that, but I was the oven that carefully baked the ingredients for 9 months and felt a little credit was due.

“Thanks for baking me Mom.” she smiles warmly, her right cheek dressed in a dimple.

“Anytime, Darlin. The baking was the easy part; it’s the serving you that’s tricky!”

It was the first birthday in fifteen years of mothering that I would be absent on a child’s special day. Weird for me. Probably weird for her, too. Weeks prior, dripping with mother guilt, I broached the subject. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. After a litany that ranged from singer to veterinarian, I asked another question.

“Have I ever told you what you should be?”

“No Mom. You tell me to follow my dreams.”

“Do you know my dream?” I ask.

“To be a writer?” she says with a look over the top of her eyes that tells me she wonders if I have forgotten.

“It just so happens,” I explain, “that I have an opportunity for a workshop with an amazing author that will help me to follow that dream!”

“Oh Mom! You have to go!” she clapped and hugged me. My cheerleader. I explained that it would mean missing her 8th birthday. A no-brainer for Cadence. “We can celebrate that any day, Mom.”

With her love, permission and wind beneath my wings, I left that morning fully charged.

It was all good.

I called her from the car with sudden inspiration. “I have a favor to ask,” I told her. Eight years ago, you were born and I named you. Today, my writing future is being born and my blog needs a name, so now you get to name me!”

She thought about it and said, “Mom, you said it was easy to bake me and you brought me here, so you are the Easy-Bake Mom!” And that was that. Easy Bake Mom it is.