As Mother’s Day approaches, it is a good time to count blessings and lick a spoonful of icing from the bowl. Motherhood (and grandmotherhood, I am discovering), actually has many sweet moments, and is like mixing, baking and putting together a cake.
The mixing part can be hard—especially if you’re doing it by hand. Blending the butter, flour, and eggs can take a lot of muscle power and patience just like blending behaviors and shaping attitudes especially during those early childhood (and teenage) years can seem endless. Which mother has not experienced this tedious process? Ah… but adding the sugar and vanilla adds the sweetness, just like all those hugs and kisses moms get to experience.
The baking part--or rather the waiting and watching during the growing years-- can be exasperating and fearful at times: the cake looks like it is rising all right, and the aroma from the oven is fabulous… but will it taste good? Will there be irregularity in the texture? Can I get it out of the oven at just the right time, when it’s not burned or under baked? Or rather….Will the behaviors I have modeled and the lessons I have taught my children take hold? Have they helped mold my children’s character? Will they be tolerant and gracious, and even-keeled?
And then, there is the cooling process and flipping the cake layer out of the pan, hopefully in one piece. As the final phase of my children’s childhood comes to an end, I hope I have helped my children develop the maturity they need to have good lives. And, by the time they have grown, hopefully they are well-rounded individuals, just like a properly- baked cake layer—even textured, soft crumb, and wonderful to look at and enjoy… and in one piece!
And finally for the icing… the grandchildren! Just as the frosting binds the cake layers together and adds another dimension to the taste of the cake, so do the grandchildren add flavor and depth to a grandmother’s life. Pass the bowl of icing, please! Yum!