A Cake, A Cat and A Make-Believe Magic Wand, part 2

As we continued our adventure I realized we would have to make really good time to make it to our destination by six o’clock. I eased our car into traffic beginning the next leg of our journey. I looked at the clock in the car then thought about the route ahead. Sure, it was only a few miles away but there were factors that would slow us down. Again, there are plans but there is also reality. Traffic was still thick. There would be at least five red lights to navigate through. And then there is that one street where speed cameras live and magically produce speeding tickets which in turn provides a good reason to drive the slower than desired speed limit even when in a hurry. I quickly became resigned to the fact that we would be late. Admittedly, before Hannah, and even before Jennifer, I sometimes had a problem with getting to places on time. Now, married and with a young one, that getting-to-places-on-time thing is even more of a challenge. Now, despite lots of considering this process and planning it out to some degree we would still somehow wear our lateness through the door on this evening.

Mind you this lateness was only by about five minutes. Still, late is late. The good news is we weren’t the only ones who struggled to get to the church building by six o’clock. As we walked into the building with others, there was a small sense of victory. We had conquered the dinner battle. We had arrived here. Now, maybe we didn’t outright win this battle the way we really wanted to do but that part of the evening was now behind us. We could breathe again. Then another sinking feeling weaved its way into the room. We still had the class and cake decorating to go through.

It is amazing sometimes to watch how your child picks up some of your own traits. Jennifer and I are both slow to warm to social situations. It may take us a few minutes to feel comfortable enough to step into a large crowd of people, even if we know some of the people there very well. It may even be a much smaller group of people but still there is usually a few awkward moments of silence while we try to catch our balance before moving forward. We have found Hannah to be the exact same way. We can tell her we are going to visit her grandparents or her friends and she will become very excited talking all about these people and get really fired up about going. Then, when we actually get to where we are going, she quietly reverts to a shell where she peeks out enough from time to time to assess how she can fit into what is happening. This night was no different. While the dads who had gathered this night began meeting in the church kitchen to begin the class, the children were turned loose in the gym, just outside the kitchen, to play and run off the excess energy stored inside. Here was Hannah, clinging to my pants leg as if it were a life vest for a drowning person.

I sometimes feel part of being the father of a young child is being a good salesman. I have often felt like a salesman when trying to convince Hannah to do something. So, on this night, I put on my sales hat and began trying to convince Hannah that I would be just one room away while she played with her friends. These were some of her favorite friends I said. She goes to daycare with two of the ones here this night and another has been her friend for a long time. I sweetened the deal by pointing out the tricycles and other toys available and as a bonus, the large room she would have to enjoy these things. Hannah is a tough customer though and wasn’t buying what I was selling. Finally, it came down to me telling Hannah to play with her friends and walking away. I was never great at sales.

Our class started. Soon, we were being taught the basics of cake decoration. Now and then a child would squall or a minor crash could be heard. One of the dads would step to the kitchen door, look into the big room and determine if action needed to be taken. I peered out a time or two myself to locate Hannah and a friend riding in cars taking turns pushing one another, laughing and giggling like little girls should. Back in the kitchen, the dads continued on our journey to help our children create an edible masterpiece for Mom.

Right about then, nature called. Hannah stepped into the kitchen, located me, tugged on my pants leg and the once reluctant little girl loudly announced, “Daddy, I gotta go potty.” Every dad in the room gave a passing, yet knowing, glance, so I excused us to take Hannah to a bathroom. As I stepped out of the kitchen I realized the dilemma before me. Here, at the church building, she usually goes to the bathroom with her mother and that would be to the ladies restroom. I cannot go there and would not even think of going there-not even on this evening with only a handful of people here. I can’t take her to the men’s room either. I mean at her age how would I explain urinals to her? Then it hits me, there is a single restroom down a hallway near her Sunday school classroom. As we approach that room, Hannah objects demanding we go to “the blue bathroom”. Try as I might I cannot get Hannah to understand that Dad cannot go to “the blue bathroom” and how we need to go to this bathroom. I pull the stubborn little girl down the hall to this specific bathroom and she is not happy about it in the least bit. She cries. She wails. Still, we go to this bathroom that to a dissatisfied little girl is not “the blue bathroom”. Once we are there, we wait. And we wait. Despite the urgency displayed in the kitchen, this potty break is a bust. So, we wash up and return to the others, Hannah to her friends and me to the class.

I try to catch up from my absence. I look at the patterns the other dads have been working on and try to copy them. I then see Hannah again. This time she tells me again that she needs to potty. So, I put the bag full of frosting down and take Hannah’s hand and off we go again to the bathroom. This time, just removed by a mere minutes from our last visit, which was filled with drama and disappointment, Hannah is pleased to see this particular bathroom. I am glad to say the second time was the charm as this potty break visit was successful. Again, we washed our hands and returned to our friends.

By the time I get back to the class, it is nearing its end. It was obvious to me that some of the dads really had potential to do wonderful things with a bag full of frosting and the right tip and a cake. I, on the other hand, felt like I might need a semester’s worth of classes just to get by with a C- grade.

As the class ended, the dads began rounding up their children. We would all now begin decorating our own cakes. Hannah was ready for this. She insisted on taking the frosting bag to attempt to squeeze out some pattern onto the cake. She loved cutting out patterns of other frosting and placing those on the cake. I asked her if she wanted me to write Mom’s name on the cake and she was all for this. As I shakily squeezed out an M I realized I likely made the letter just a bit too big for the size of cake we had. Subsequently, the O and the other M were just a bit smaller in size. That didn’t really matter anyway since about the time I finished writing the word Mom, Hannah stuck her finger in the icing, took a swipe through the word ‘MOM’ then licked the icing off her finger. We placed cut out hearts on the cake and I even attempted a couple of borders around the edge of the cake. As I worked away, Hannah would now and then poke a finger into the cake or swipe at the icing to taste the sugary goodness for herself.

It was soon time to go. We thanked our teachers for the evening. We told our friends goodbye. We carefully loaded our cake into a box before leaving for home. On the ride, I asked Hannah if she were looking forward to giving her cake to her mother and she said she was excited about it.

During the class, likely between potty breaks, my wife had sent me a text that our cat had died that evening. So, I knew this troubling news on our ride home. I had feared this moment for several days anyway as our cat had seemed to decline in health quickly. I knew it would be a different experience for us coming home every day without Daisy meeting and greeting us at the door and how this would be our experience beginning on this very night. As we drove home, I tossed around things I might say to Hannah to let her know how Daisy, our cat, would no longer be around.

We got home where Jennifer was waiting on us. Hannah was very excited about the cake. Mother’s Day was still a few days away but we all knew that this cake would not last a few more minutes without being unveiled much less a few more days.

It had been a hard week on Jennifer. Work had beat down on her pretty hard. Daisy, our fourteen year old cat, had grown sick quickly, and passed away just a few hours earlier. Daisy had been her cat before we were married, so her loss ran deeper than mine or Hannah's. I am not sure how she was holding up but as I looked at her when we walked through the door she appeared to have found a certain peace in it all.

As Hannah and Jennifer opened the cake box I snapped a few pictures. Jennifer fawned over the cake and Hannah beamed with pride. A decision was made that we needed to eat some of the cake. We pulled the cake out of the box and took more pictures. In the light of our kitchen, the imperfections of the cake decorating class seemed more obvious. A cut-out heart sat on the cake sideways. The border was uneven and choppy in spots. There were a few small finger pokes in the cake and the icing had a few finger swipes here and there. When I looked back at Jennifer and Hannah I could tell they looked past those imperfections and saw a beautiful masterpiece made by one of them for the other one of them. We moved the cake to the dinner table where Hannah insisted on cutting the cake. She gave it an effort before Jennifer helped her. We ate up enjoying every bite. While the cake was good my most favorite part was reliving some of the fun moments Hannah and I shared that evening with Jennifer and seeing the two of them light up with smiles and laughter as we started this Mother’s Day celebration a few days early.

Life is full of mountains and valleys though. Someone once pointed out to me how when we are on top of a mountain that a valley is often near. Just a few minutes after that celebration, Hannah mentioned Daisy the cat. We sat down with Hannah on our couch. Then in a very eloquent way Jennifer explained to her that Daisy had died that day. Daisy would not be coming home. It is hard to know how anyone will react to such bad news. We had no idea how Hannah would respond. She cried long and hard. Even though Daisy wasn’t the friendliest cat, she was a constant in our home all of Hannah’s life and now that constant was gone, and a little girl experienced loss for the first time.

There we three sat, crying, holding on to one another just a few minutes removed from laughing and smiling and eating cake. All in one day we saw a mountain and we saw a valley. We stretched beyond our own expectations and our own comfort and accepted change when we had to do so.

At that moment I looked around for Hannah's make-believe magic wand from earlier in the evening. No doubt it was somewhere nearby then. I realized though that we didn't need a magic wand. We had each other. And in some sense that is it's own magic, a world shared with one another providing healing, comfort, celebration, laughter, a world of something special that does all the things that matter when you and the ones you love come together as family.

A Cake, A Cat and A Make-Believe Magic Wand, part 1

I have found I don’t always do a lot of things with Hannah away from home. We don’t usually go on a daddy-daughter excursion very often. There have been a few occasions I have ventured out with Hannah but when I begin to number them I come up with a very short list. I take Hannah to and from daycare most everyday so the whole getting-her-ready adventure followed by the getting-to-there adventure is often enough for me. It can be frustrating and exhausting. Still, there are moments she and I need to experience together. When she was two, we went to a daddy-daughter Valentine lunch at our church. We have been to the park to run and swing once or twice. Over the past Christmas holiday break while Mom was at work one day, we did lunch at a restaurant.

A few months back a couple from our church provided a cake decorating class for Dads. The one night event would show basics of cake decorating to the dads while the kids played. The dads and the daughters would then take a small cake and decorate it together before taking it home to be given to Mom for Mother’s Day.

The whole process started on this day with picking Hannah up from daycare to grab a bite to eat before the class. The cake class started at six o’clock so we would have maybe a thirty or forty-five minute window to eat and then drive to the class. I had given the eating experience some thought and determined out of all the choices available an Americanized Mexican restaurant would be our supper stop. I came to this conclusion because I knew Hannah would eat their rice and chips. Add some melty cheese and the food requirement for her, maybe not nutritious enough for what passes as school lunch these days, would be fulfilled.

We piled into the car wading our way through heavy afternoon rush hour traffic. I guided our car through the bumper-to-bumper mayhem controlled by the rhythmic pattern of occasional stop lights until we made our way to our culinary destination.

I won’t name the place where we ate to protect the innocent. I will say it is named after one of my three favorite stooges, just after Curly and Larry, and when you walk through the door the employees on hand greet you, sometimes heartily, other times, in an ‘I-can’t-believe-management-asks-us-to-do-this’ voice. Anyway, I thought walking through the line here to order some rice, chips, queso and a burrito and having the food assembled before our eyes and then found waiting on a tray at the end of the line when I paid would be the most efficient route to go. What I failed to consider was the fact that there are plans and then there is reality.

As I glanced at the menu to verify what I wanted to order for the two of us, I also was able to note that there was one woman in line in front of us. Good, I thought, this will go well. Short line equals short wait. Then I realized she had four children with her. Still, we moved forward. When it came time to order, I asked for a small bowl of rice for Hannah and a burrito for me. I also chimed in how we wanted a small bowl of queso for our order. As we inched down the line, I ticked off to the server the items I wanted on the burrito. Before we got too far into this process though, one of the orders from the woman in line before us had been botched. Our line stopped in order to correct the mistake. This left me standing with Hannah on my hip waiting for the line to move as Hannah seemed to grow heavier and heavier with each passing second. Reality was elbowing my plans in the ribs at this point. By this time, the line behind us began to stack up as well as people began to come in looking for something to eat. I was beginning to feel trapped and began pondering why I agreed to go through with this. Once the line began moving again, I was able to get to the register to pay for our food. Somehow or other, Hannah’s bowl of rice didn’t make it to the end of the line, so we had to scramble for that. Things settled, I paid for our food and we were on to the next step.

I asked Hannah to pick out a table for us. She chose a booth next to a window. She crawled into the seat, looked across the food then up to me and asked for chips and cheese. I looked down at the tray only to realize we had no queso. I had to go back to the register and ask about this. I was told I hadn’t ordered queso but they would be glad to sell me some. I exchanged money with them when they handed me the small bowl of gooey goodness all the time wondering if the woman in line in front of me was impressed how this place gave her and her kids an extra bowl of cheese.

I set out Hannah’s rice, cheese and box of Apple juice. I then turned to get a drink for myself. Sweet tea sounded good at the moment, so I filled my paper cup with ice and poured in the reddish-orange liquid. I topped it off with a cover and a straw and made my way back to the table.

I then realized why Hannah had been mostly quiet on this trip so far. She was holding a small metal tape measure in her hand. I generally like to keep this item in my car so I can carry it into places where I might need it, like the hardware store so I can measure something to make sure it fits what I need. Somehow, Hannah had discovered it in the car and brought it along. Instead of eating her food, Hannah was pulling out the tape measure, holding it in place and using it like a magic wand to place spells on the other customers.

Realizing time will be a factor, I begin to eat my food while trying to encourage Hannah to eat her food. I took a few bites of my food then took a swig of sweet tea only to find that the tea wasn’t all that sweet after all. About this time, Hannah drops the tape measure between the booth seat and the window. She gets out of the seat to try to retrieve what she calls her magic wand only to wind up wedged between the seat and window. I uncomfortably reached over our food on the table in order to finagle the seat a bit until she was able to reach down, get the tape measure and then get seated again. This mini-adventure was enough for another drink of tea I thought. This sip was no sweeter than the other one, so I made the move to dump the tea and refill with something else.

When I returned to the table I noted that Hannah had nibbled at some of her food. I continued to urge her to eat as time was slipping away from us. I pulled out my phone to check the time and noted that it was later than I hoped. At this point, we really needed to get going. I also saw that my wife has sent me a text message telling me that our cat, who had been sick at the time, is in her final hours. She was on her way to the vet at that moment. Things sure seemed to be colliding right and left.

Hannah picked at her food some more. Meantime, I began speed eating the rest of a burrito. Then in a moment of painful self-awareness I noticed I was sweating and not just a thin layer of perspiration but sweating some major league sweat. Sitting next to the window while the restaurant’s air conditioning had kicked off for a few minutes paired with the many things going on at one time was obviously getting to me.

We finished the meal as best as we could. I decided the rice and leftover queso could go home with us. Hannah helped me clean the table and the trash then we made our way out the door ready for the next step in this journey. Meanwhile, Hannah continued to wave her magic wand, which, again, in reality is a tape measure. That didn’t mean I wasn’t wishing that the tape measure could magically get us through traffic and to the church building because while this adventure eating out was ending, the next adventure still had to take place.