"Best Mom Ever"

Some of you got a kick out of my ice cream cake update on Facebook, so here’s the full confession (Last year's cake pictured):

My son only wanted two things for his birthday: a DSi and an ice cream cake shaped like an M&M. We decided we didn’t want to buy the DSi ($169 electronic devise, though he is allowed to save up for it himself). He was a good sport. Still, that made the ice cream cake seem pretty important, so I was feeling like a mighty lousy mother when I left that till the last minute and then couldn’t find the kind of M&M shaped cake we got last year. I rushed home from the supermarket empty-handed to meet the school bus, brought both the kids to my daughter’s orthodontist appointment, and then to a different supermarket in the hope that they would have the M&M cake. They didn’t. Birthday boy was still being a good sport, so when he picked an ice cream cake a little bigger than we needed for a family of four, I relented, even though I secretly harbored doubts about whether there was room in the freezer since we never ate all the ice cream guests brought for Easter.

Indeed, there wasn’t enough room in the freezer, so after dinner the cake got shoved into the fridge, on top of the box of left-over pizza. I had intended to dig out some freezer space once everyone got settled with their homework, an intention I remembered the next morning when I opened the fridge and found a huge puddle of melted ice cream weighing down the pizza box, “Happy Birthday” still legible. There was a moment when I thought the birthday boy might melt, too, but his sister helped save the day. When I told them that this was a special morning because I was going to let them eat ice cream for breakfast, my daughter grabbed a spoon and started scooping the mess into her mouth with great enthusiasm and smiles. Soon birthday boy realized this was funny, and our family huddled with spoons around the soggy pizza box.

There’s a special pleasure that comes from making lemonade out of lemons, and not just because of the sugar, though I’m sure that helped cheer up my kids. Later that day, I told the story to a friend who declared, “You’re the best mom ever!” Hardly. But every once in awhile I get a glimpse of our family giggling around the pizza box, and I think we’re all doing OK—four people trying to love each other and make the best of life’s little puddles.