All By Myself
I know what you’re thinking, that I’m going to write about how children want to be independent and tend to get frustrated when we want to help them do something. No. I’m not talking about children here, but us mothers. A couple of days ago, as I left the café I had been enjoying dessert at with my stepson and his friends, I blurted out that I am busy because I have a fire engine birthday cake to make that evening. Filip’s young friend was surprised, “Why don’t you just order one?” she asked. I thought about it for a moment (horrified by her suggestion), and quickly said: “It’s a mother’s ambition thing, one day you’ll understand.” That evening, despite feeling sick obviously coming down with some sort of bug, I managed to get the kids involved in helping mix and bake the cake (after Googling “easy chocolate cake recipes”). While the cake cooled, I put the kids to bed and edited 10 or so pages of text before my hard drive crashed. Luckily I managed to email what I had done first –...