Dumping Your Cake - and Eating it Too

My son is 15 years old today.

He and a couple of friends spent the night on our trampoline, last night and some time this afternoon, I will stop by the skate park (his second home) to surprise him with a chocolate cake covered with sprinkles.

As I was frosting it last night, I was reminded of another cake I had made for him, nine years ago.

His dad and I had just separated and everything felt heavy.

Plants were dying left and right, our dog had begun to limp a little bit and Marco had broken his arm.

I felt as though all of it was my fault.

But I made a cake.

And as my three kids and their two best friends waited to see Marco blow his candles, I opened the fridge and pulled that cake out.

And before I could understand what happened, I dropped it on the floor.

Face down.

Time stopped and I could feel twelve eyes on me (two of them belonging to the dog).

As surely as I knew my name, I knew that I had a big decision to make. Quickly.

It felt like one of those YES or NO moments. No room for maybe.

So, desperate to not have any more pain, at least for today, I turned to the kids and said: “All right you guys. No hands allowed. Go for it.”

They looked a little scared at first and then one of them moved. And then, all of them got up. Slowly at first and then madly. And they all got on the floor, hands behind their back and licked the cake off the floor, faces smeared with frosting and giggling their butts off.

And yes, we have a dog. And no, the floor was not spotless.

But they lived. In fact, we all did.

Come to think of it, one of the very same kid was sleeping on the trampoline this morning, for yet another birthday which tells me things can’t be that bad around here after all.

(but please don’t let me drop the cake at the skate park...)