Birthday Waves

It’s no secret my children enjoy challenging my creative abilities when it comes to their birthday cakes.  And it’s no secret creating their imaginations brings me much joy.

For her 13^th birthday, which is a slightly big milestone in my mind, my daughter asked for a from-scratch chocolate cake with chocolate mousse decorated with an exact replica of her surfboard surfing a wave. Oh my.

First let me tell you, ideas for how to create a 3D ocean wave were completely absent in my online and Pinterest searches. Second, my daughter might have changed her mind three times within the week before her birthday about what would be acceptable to her. Third, I have skills, but no training. Any skills I posses are winging-it at best (Thank you Lord for an inkling of artistic talent.). My daughter has more decorating and baking experience than I do at this point, but she has been gracious, and after a few terse exchanges about the mind-changing difficulties, she stepped back and let me do my thing.

To say the oversized-cupcake result represents a monumental amount of failures would be an understatement. Compared to the vision in my head, this is an artistic Pinterest fail. I’d also give myself a D+ on execution and technique. (If you had only seen my kitchen in this process…eye roll.)

But as I stepped back to survey the end product, for an untrained decorator with no source of inspiration other than my daughter’s surfboard, it’s not half bad. It’s almost even pretty. Others might find it incredible. The artist is always their biggest critic.

And all I could do was think about my daughter and me and surfing and life and all the lessons held within this experience.

Our ideations of how life should turn out rarely come to fruition the way we envision, but along the way, on the journey, in the process, we learn invaluable lessons.

At one point in my complete frustration with icing the project, my daughter walked over and gently came alongside me and just helped. She didn’t placate me with encouraging words that weren’t true. She didn’t say anything negative or positive about the wreck that was unfolding in front of me. She just offered to help. Then with calm confidence, she did. She fixed the issue, and in the process taught me how someone can be gracious with their help, how someone coming alongside you can calm with just their presence, how tackling problems together without a lot of words is worth its weight in gold. She got me back on track, then walked away, leaving me encouraged to keep moving forward and able to manage what was in front of me.

She’s good at that. Her confidence, when bridled with gentility and grace, guides others. Life’s kinks and bumps in the road have never phased her for long. She just takes it as it comes, and like surfing, sometimes she catches the ride while other times she waits for the spin cycle to end to take a breath.  But no matter the outcome, she gets back on that board and paddles back out because the thrill of trying is worth possibly getting crushed, and if you’re out there in the line up with friends, even better. She’s a ride or die kind of friend that would rather encourage you to keep going with her than throw in the towel. She’ll laugh with you, not at you, then laugh at herself harder.

All these lessons from one almost-failed attempt at a birthday cake. All these lessons from my girl. I hope the lessons keep coming. I hope I’m never too proud to learn from the younger, to learn from the mistakes, to keep trying, to keep paddling back out.

Happy 13^th birthday, Savannah Lee. I pray for many more years of learning our way together through this life because one thing’s for sure, you’re gonna make it fun. Hugs, your Mama