Three times a year I put myself through the finger-numbing task of creating and decorating my daughters’ birthday cakes and treats. It’s often a four- or five-hour process, during which my shoulders cramp up high around my ears as I hunch over my masterpiece. My tembles throb from the effort of concentration. And my hands spasm from overexertion. At about the three-quarters mark toward completing the task, when the aches and exhaustion rise to a fever-pitch, I question myself.
Why am I doing this? I think.
But I press on, piping row after row of buttercream stars or painstakingly dipping cake ball after cake ball in melted candy drops. My hands shake and the work becomes sloppy. I stop to rest, get a drink, massage my wrists.
“Why do I do this?” I ask, this time aloud. One of my daughters is passing through the kitchen and has stopped to admire my work.
“You know you say that every year,” she says. “So why do you do it if it bothers you so much?”
I pause, fingers locking back into their tight grip around the frosting bag. I swipe my free fingers through some dripped buttercream on the countertop and savor the sweetness as I think.
“It doesn’t bother me so much…” I say, my voice trailing off as I ponder the reasons for putting myself through the agony of the cake-decorating process.
My daughter raises an eyebrow. She’s overheard my mumbled grousing during the past hour as I’ve frosted and re-frosted one section of cake.
“Okay,” I say, answering her look. “It can be a pain. But it’s so worth it. I can’t imagine making you a plain cake or paying someone else to do it when I know how. It’s a way for me to show my love to you.”
Just then her younger sister sweeps into the kitchen and stops to look at her cake.
“Go away,” the elder says, shooing her from the room. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. For later. At your party.” She looks conspiratorily over her shoulder at me.
I shift my body around the kitchen island to shield the view of the cake as I work.
“She’s right,” I call out to my departing child. “Don’t look until it’s done.”
I turn back to the cake. It does look remarkable. All those little pointed stars crammed close together, hiding the cake beneath. Only a small square of velvety-brown cake remains visible. Almost done. It’s then I feel it – that rush of excitement over seeing the work come together. It will be… well, not breath-taking exactly. But it will be special.
And maybe that’s why I do it. Because all those little stars and all those hours of cramped fingers come together into something that reflects what the recipient is to me: special.
In fact, it’s why, as parents, we get up in the middle of the night for feedings and fevers. It’s why we sit on damp, chilly soccer fields, while our kids chase down the ball. It’s why, late at night in a dim living room, dozing upright in a hard chair, we wait for our teenager to return home.
Our kids are precious to us. And because of that they inspire us to take on tasks and chores and obligations that sometimes make us wonder what we were thinking. And I believe that the occasional sacrifice involved in parenting communicates a unique message of value to our kids. “You are worth this,” it says.
Why do I do this? Because my children matter to me. They’re worth the sleepless nights and chilled noses. They’re worth anxious waiting. They are worth hours of sore knuckles and stiff shoulders.
Why do I do this? Because I’m a mom whose knack at cake-decorating allows her to show her girls love in a unique way.
For instructions on how to make the cake pops pictured above check out Bakerella’s book, Cake Pops.
So tell me, dear reader, what is it that you keep doing for your kids even when you ask yourself why?
