I had this idea in my head, a sweet little home movie if you will, when I first quit my job to stay home with our kids. In it, I saw myself standing at the stove with a cup of coffee in my hand, happily flipping pancakes for my children EACH MORNING before we left the house. And in my movie, I imagined them all grown up telling people about how great their mom was about getting up and making them breakfast in the morning. “Her children shall arise up and call her the blessed pancake maker” or something like that. Isn’t that how the Scripture goes?
Many years later, I laugh at what reality is like in our home. I’m still asleep when my children get up in the morning. Only the happy coos and goos of my one-year old wake me up. And my eldest son, he makes breakfast for himself and occasionally, he’ll make something for his brother. My children, well…my boys actually don’t love pancakes. (RIGHT?! Who are these people?!) My daughter happily eats everything in sight. But not my boys. One likes toast with peanut butter or cereal without milk. The other prefers oatmeal. Neither ever want me to make pancakes.
Sometimes I’ll offer to make pancakes, you know…in an effort to at least remotely resemble my little imaginary movie of my life as a SAHM. They usually say “no thanks”. Have I mentioned that I make GREAT pancakes? And not just boring buttermilk, we’re talking yeast, German, crepes, whole wheat with banana and chocolate chips, pumpkin even!
I tell you all this because today, I was making something that has become my specialty over the years. Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake. It comes out for every birthday in our family. It comes out for special guests. It comes out for holidays. It’s one of those things that is always good, right down to the last little crumb. My boys know this cake well. So when they saw me make it today, they jumped and begged to lick that beater covered in decadent chocolate frosting.
As they greedily licked away (don’t worry, now I give them each their own spoons…and no double dipping!) I thought of my funny home movie about the pancakes. The stinkers still don’t like pancakes. But that’s ok…because I don’t like morning :D. We all however, agree that chocolate cake, THIS chocolate cake, this is special.
So maybe I just had the wrong details in my happy home movie in my head. It wasn’t pancakes I was making…it was chocolate cake!!!
Yeah…that’s it.