Cute Lil’ Cupcake

By Beck

The Baby is attending a Valentine’s Day party today, which means – oh, OF COURSE – yet another batch of elaborate cupcakes for me to stay up late making. Someday I will be better at managing my time and will figure out how to make cupcakes during DAYLIGHT HOURS, but by then I’ll probably be old and grey and full of sleep ALL the time and not just at ten o’ clock at night while I’m trying to make buttercream frosting.

It’s been a partyful week for us – The Boy’s class had a 100th Day of School/Valentine’s Day party yesterday, with a cordial invitation extended to parents and younger siblings, so The Baby and I headed over to that as well. As soon as he saw her walk in, his eyes lit up and he brought her over to his table to work with him and his friends, this tiny little girl sitting at a table of sturdy Northern boys, dirt in the creases of their hands.

“I like your sister,” said a friend. “I like her because she can write her name.” And she can, the letters of her name fierce and big and straight ahead on the page. Last night, before bed, she wrote her name over and over again on the Valentine’s her father made her for today. She knows what she is, what she is called – and in real life, off the computer screen, she would never, ever stand to be called “Baby”. She is fierce and fragile and whip-smart and scheming (She told me this morning that her big sister looked sickish and should stay home from school. Oh, and since she should stay home from school, perhaps The Baby would just help herself to one of the highly coveted juice boxes – after all, her sister wouldn’t be needing it. Phsaw, kid! Your sister is going to school! Put down that juice box!).

Whenever you write about your own kids, I think that there’s always the risk of making them into too-perfect storybook kids, all funny quips and adorable antics – unless you’re one of those troubled My-Child-Is-The-Source-Of-All-My-Problems parents. The Baby is quite the handful – she does like to scream – and she’s also a delight and she’s also a person and who knows how she’s seeing her own childhood? Maybe someday she will write about being small and too-doted on and having to fight so hard to get everyone to see her crackling smarts, her fiery independence, her name black strong slashes on the page. You would know her if you saw her.

Beck blogs at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.