The Cake.

Have you ever wondered where our expectations come from?
Like, where did we get the idea that adulthood was going to be all that and a bag of chips?
Or where we got the idea that, as a mom, I'm supposed to always know the answer?

I had a lot of expectations for motherhood. I imagined a sweet little baby nuzzling up to me when we were lounging around the house watching Netflix.

Nope. She just cried.

I imagined having a tidy house and dinner prepared all while baby snoozed.

Rarely happens while chasing this girl around. 

And I expected to be able to make my darling a fabulous and delicious birthday cake.
Made.
With.
Love.

Please tell me that I'm not alone in consistently failing at motherhood.
And that, friends, is where the lightbulb went off for the title of this blog.

Failed Expectations

Let's take a minute to rewind to July 2016 - my daughter's first birthday.
I had planned a wonderful birthday cake - decorations, recipe, ingredients, it was all easy.
It was going to be, well, a piece of cake.
And somewhere in the midst of baking - something I rarely do - I felt like a failure.
My cupcakes, the ones that were supposed to be huge fluffy strawberry creations, fell.

As it would turn out, they looked kinda neat. And they were pretty good.
My mother ended up making LC's big cake, and I decorated it.
But it was during that experience that I vowed to always pay someone else to make her cake. I figured that I had done my duty, I had made my daughter a smash cake for her first birthday.

No cake was eaten...

Loving mother toils away in the kitchen so baby can smash and smear a small cake.

I did it. Check that one off the list.

But somewhere between July 2016 and May 2017, I forgot about that. This May, I began scrolling through cakes on Pinterest, searching for the perfect Frozen inspired cake. The one I found seemed simple enough. And I made the fondant Olaf with ease. However, when it came to the actual baking part, all of my 2016 memories came flooding back: I hate baking.

I suppose that the problem is that I never wrote about the Cake Baking Fiasco of 2016. So here I am now telling you about it all. The ridiculous amount of money I spent buying baking supplies. The stress of making a cake while packing and wrangling a 2 year old and trying to listen to my online grad class. The confectioners sugar that got ALL over my kitchen.

But through it all, the cake actually looked pretty good. For a moment, I was impressed with myself.

 Until we cut that sucker and tried a bite.
And that's when I knew.
I just knew.
Failed Expectations.

I had expected the cake I made my girl, the cake I spent so much time thinking about, planning, and baking, to be a huge success. It's what moms are supposed to do, right? At least that's what I thought; that was my expectation.

Oh how wrong it was.
As wrong as the cake was bad.

What I've found, though, is that with every failure there is a chance to grow and learn and make memories. The girls had a ball playing in the cake. They loved dipping their tiny fingers in the icing (the only part of the cake that was good!) and licking it off. So, I guess it was all worth it. The time, money, and frustrations paid off in sweet memories.

If we dig around a little, I'm pretty sure there's probably a picture of me sitting in that same spot as a kid with my birthday cake! 

Sweet girl gave cousin Christy a bite.
Even sweeter Christy pretended to eat that bite! ;)
It really was gross. 

This has to be one of my favorites. They sat at my Grandaddy's table and ate icing and fed each other icing for the longest. 

But please.
Next May, I beg you to start reminding me of these incidents.
Remind me that I need to just fork over the money and have someone else whip up a cake!