It seems like just yesterday, that I was a know it all teenager rolling my eyes at my mother for saying that it seemed like just yesterday. Still it is true. Everything goes by so quickly. The things that seem so very important to us at one moment, we find later down the line, may hold very little relevance at all. That is what life is about. It is what we are about. We live. We learn. We make choices. We move forward and back and forward again. We change. We adapt. We influence. We are influenced. We rebel. We see reason. We stand firm. We tremble. We sit with each other. We stand alone. We hold hands. We love. We move on. This is what we do and more. We are altogether simple and complex and there is nothing in the world like the growth of a child to put into perspective how quickly time is passing. A little more than a year ago I was surrounded by pregnant women. Two at work, a backpacker friend, and then my little sister. I think that last bit probably says it all. In all fairness and truth, I wasn't actually surrounded, but for me, I might as well have been. It was not long before this time that I was diagnosed with Policystic Ovarian Syndrome. Which basically meant it would be difficult for me to get pregnant. I was 37 years old and I had never been pregnant. Which never really bothered me. I never really thought about it that much to be honest. I truly just felt like it was always on the horizon. I believed that it would happen in God's time. I was always perfectly fine with that, until...I realized that it might not be on the horizon. I kid you not, I had never felt an inkling of urgency about this subject, but when I realized the possibility was growing that I might not have a child of my own, I kind of went...let's say...a little crazy. I am not really even sure why now. I think in part I just couldn't stand the finality of it. Then there was the part about my husband. My husband, Mississippi Rob, whom I love dearly, confessed to me one night that he really did not want to have more children at our age. He said that he felt that he would have been fine with it, had it happened 5 years earlier, but now he was over 40 and he just couldn't fathom it. At first I thought I could sway him on this. I thought he would warm to it. I thought if it happened he would feel differently, but then one day in a heated argument he told me just how strongly he felt that he COULDN'T take that step. While the details of his feelings I will leave between us, let me just say that I realized for the first time, that he really could not bring himself to do this thing, not even for me. Now, I know my husband. I think I probably know him better than anyone. I know the reasons why this is an issue for him, but still what about me? That is what I kept saying to myself, and other people were saying it to me as well, of course. Other well meaning souls (and they really do mean well a lot of times) always have plenty to say, but in the end you have to make your decisions for yourself, because you are the absolute only one who has to live with them. All I could think was how insanely selfish this husband of mine was to withhold this from me. How could he do this??? Then there was the way I felt about myself. I felt as though I was some how less of a woman because I couldn't and wouldn't procreate, and this was unintentionally re-iterated to me by other "well meaning souls" again, who it seemed constantly were reminding me that it was "the most amazing experience I was ever going to have", and that "everything that seemed so important to me before I had a child, would some how cease to be important". Even my own mother had been telling me since I was born, that the day of my birth was " the most special day of her entire life". Well, I thought, that pretty much leaves me out of having my "most special day of my entire life". I hated my husband, which a lot of people seemed OK with :) and I hated the "mommy club" that I would never be a part of, and I hated myself for hating them both, because I knew it was crazy and beneath me. I thought and talked about leaving my husband. I picked fights with him, and threatened him, and tried to manipulate him. I said things to him that I wish I hadn't, and I wondered if I was young enough still to start over. But when I would think of going forward without him, all I could think about was all the things we have done together, and all the things I might have never done with out him. He pushes me. That has always been a very annoying plus to our relationship. Still I couldn't stand him, and he made me sick (not really :), but then one day I was reading a blog. I don't even know whose, but it was a woman and she was talking about the very subject I was dealing with (husbands who don't want kids), and she posed the simple question "Did you marry your husband because you loved him or because you wanted to have kids with him?" I knew in that moment that I would stay with my husband, and I would be strong and move on from this, because I had married my husband because I loved him, and I still do. Sometimes you reach a point in your life where you realize that things aren't going to be the way you pictured them, and you can kick and scream about it all you want, but you are only postponing the joy that awaits you when you just get over yourself and get on with it.
A year ago yesterday this vision of preciousness was born to my work friend and her husband. Her name is Jacy Mae and she had a polka dot cupcake birthday party this past weekend. Jacy Mae's very talented mother honored me by asking me to make the cake for this celebration. Although I still have poison ivy (which is the reason for the late post) Jacy's Mom said she still wanted me to make the cake. So of course, I bought some elbow high blue rubber gloves and I rolled down my sleeves and got to work. I couldn't let Jacy down on her 1st Birthday could I?
I mixed and I baked.
I made marshmallow fondant (yum!)
I decorated...
and I grabbed hold of my happy and healed a little bit more.
I tried to make Jacy's first birthday cake as lovely and perfect as her. She seems to have enjoy it
well enough :)
While I was working on Jacy's cake, I was also making a small impromptu dinosaur cake for my beloved nephew Chase. Chase will be turning 8 on the 18th of this month and in celebration he and his family are making a trip to Universal Studios (totally jealous). Anyhoo, my mom came up with the idea, at the last minute, to have a small birthday party for him with just us and a few of his little cousins. Chase is really into dinosaurs right now, so I hurried up and made him a dinosaur cake. He totally loved it, which is what matters most to me. Here are some pics of Chase and his dinosaur cake.
I love him :)
Finally, I just wanted to say how happy I was to make these cakes. I truly love baking and making cakes and it was really special for me to get to make Jacy Mae's 1st Birthday cake, and my nephew Chase's Dinosaur cake. I am so happy to have reached the point where I realize that my party is not over. All of these little one's are such a blessing and I want to make them cake. That is what I do, and it is good enough for me. I make cake :)
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