Wife Like Me

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Degen’s birthday was on Saturday, and it was really quite miserable. He had a 102.something fever and a runny nose and cough and lethargy and grumpiness all rolled into his newly-two-year-old body.

I baked him a cake…half-baked, that is. It was my first try at making a 3D stand-up duck cake. It was meant to be a beautiful, yellow Degen duck. I made the chocolate cake batter from scratch (in keeping with our no sugar rules) and followed the instructions. I even tested the cake with a poker to make sure it came out clean and was baked all through. Then, once it had half-cooled, I tried to take it out of the pan and discovered that I’d made a chocolate volcano cake. The outside tore off and the uncooked inside poured out, lava-like. At Colin’s recommendation, I put it back in the pan and then put the entire thing in the freezer, hoping that it would freeze into a decoratable shape. It half worked. The baked side was decoratable.

The most delightful and pleasant thing about Degen’s birthday this year is that he knew what the cake candle was for. He saw me get it out and started blowing on it even before it was lit. We got lots of great pictures of him trying to blow out his yellow number 2 candle.

I also had a moment of reflection that evening and I thought about the birth of my eldest. I vividly recall the moment he was born and the immediate feeling of a whole new room being created in my heart. I loved my baby immediately and still can’t get over how much more I love him than I expected. Colin and I stared at Degen for literally hours after his birth because he was so much a part of us. Now he’s just a more happy, expressive, independent version of the baby who arrived two years ago. I am grateful and honored to be his mother, even when the “big events” of his life aren’t what I expected.

Tags: Family, Kids