The Cake

It's that time of year again - rolling out the ready-made icing on to different shaped layers of goo. Why do we do it? In the Autumn I was in the baking aisle, highly stressed but unable to do anything but push onwards. Where were the long thin biscuity things that would make good axles for the wheels of a skateboard cake?? Where?? Sighing and groaning maybe a little too loudly, I became aware of another lady scanning the shelves. "What are you looking for?" I asked. "Ughhhh, something for googly eyes for Halloween" she replied. We then had quite a sisterly little moment looking together for green things. But the pupils had to be black, it was just the irises that needed to be green... would the child know? Would he care? Probably not. But we know! We care! She was one like me - not really in a competition with other mums but with herself.

The truth is I love it. It's one of the things I looked forward to about being a mum. Don't get me wrong, there's been tears over the years (no, not Colin's). Ridiculous I know, but true. But really I love it - I could plan parties til the cows come home, just because I like it, I have a flexible job so I can make time for it and it makes me happy, otherwise I wouldn't do it. What makes me giggle though is that when pictures of cakes appear on the interweb we all write "ooo you're a great mum!" based on a cake. I want to say "I can't comment on your motherliness but hey, you're a great cake decorator!"

What makes a great mum? I put it to the court that it has not much to do with icing sugar. Some mums are brilliant at going to the park (not me), some mums are brilliant at putting themselves last (not me), some mums don't bat an eyelid at vomit (not me!!), some mums are always on time (getting better at that), some mums are great at robotic dancing (oo! me! me!). Some have children with special needs who drain every ounce of life from them, so making a cake is an irrelevancy - who's telling them they're a "totally awesome mom"? (Sorry I've been looking at a lot of cakes made by American moms on the internet!).

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well I think it takes a village to make a mum too. So thanks to Kellie for icing sugar lessons, Lynn for finding the ice cream cones in Tescos yesterday, Rachel H for the brainstorm, Maria for the pep talk, Bob for the advice on folding royal icing a year ago, Becky for the other pep talk (with a fry up so slightly better) ...and all this has been drawn upon this one afternoon just for The Cake. Imagine the input I've had on the bigger issues over the years, the stuff that really matters - now that's totally awesome!!