Let Her Eat Cake

A daily conversation:


7:30 AM "What's for dinner?"


"It's breakfast time now CC."


8 AM "I want cake!"


"No CC, we can't have cake right now. How about cereal?"


"NO! I want ketchup and a 'poon."


9 AM (after a full breakfast of banana, strawberries, blueberries and Kix)

"What's for dinner?"


"We just ate CC!"


10AM "I want a nack!" (usually crackers)


11AM more crackers...


noon "What's for dinner?" (include a pb&j, apple pieces, string cheese and anything else she can think of)

RIGHT AFTER THIS..."I want a nack!"

"AHHH no it's naptime now"

3,4,5pm more of the same (in which she snacks on raisins, yogurt, fruit snacks, raviolis, anything I can think of and yes, even candy if I'm desperate...which I usually am)

5pm dinner time

6&7PM "I want dinner!!" followed by a glass of milk and a final snack and bedtime...



So I ask you? Is it boredom, is it an emotional attachment to food at age 2? Is it a toddler's cries for her mother's attention through food, is it a tapeworm, or does she simply like to see the nervous twitch I've developed whenever I hear the words "dinner" or "nack" in which I close my eyes while holding my head and weeping followed by a gnashing of teeth??????



But, I digress from the real reason for this post:


Friday was my baby's birthday. The girl with the flash and sparkle, the Himalayan personality. Who gets the joke, who will say "now that's funny!" after SHE says something. Who loves adventure, who sings herself to sleep and awake, and sings herself into the spotlight. Who has a lioness temper with a dollop of grizzly bear, and who will cry at the very sight of human suffering of any kind. Whose eyes illuminate the canvas of her soul...and she's a masterpiece.


I adore you, Cecilia.

Peter Pan Am I

I never wanted to grow up.

I was not the child who yearned to be a teenager or the teenager who dreamed of adulthood. I was the child who thought I would always be a child. The teenager who didn’t know WHAT had happened to me and missed childhood. The adult who didn’t understand how 21 turned into 22 so quickly. I will be the 80 year old who calls my friends and says “Hey girls.”

Now just for the record, I LOVE being a wife and mother. I just still find it hard to believe that I am THE wife and mother. I still look in the mirror and can’t fathom who this grown up is staring back at me.

I relate extremely well to children and yes, even teenagers too (though sometimes I am terrified :) I guess it makes sense if I still think I’m one of them. No, it’s not like I’m trying to relive the “glory days” of high school. Far from it. I moved around so much growing up, I wonder if I just scattered the ashes of my childhood onto too many places. Every new move forced me to grow up just a little faster. New girl better fit in quickly if she wants to survive. Be one of us, be who we want you to be or you’ll be all alone. Part of me had to perish with every step into every new school. I didn’t have the sense of self to save my drowning soul.

The funny thing is, all the reinventing helped me to get along with almost anyone wherever I am. It has served me well and I’m grateful for how my experiences stretched me. I tell you this, because Monday is my birthday…And I feel 21.

I’m okay with that.