From Cabbages to Roses

I've been baking again.

I am really enjoying receiving my Cake Decorating Partwork through the post. I do not regret my decision to subscribe.

As it was my sister's birthday at the beginning of the week and my birthday at the beginning of next week, I decided that it was as good an excuse as any to make some celebration cakes. My parents were visiting so I made my dad's favourite - coffee and walnut cake (from issue 5).

Issue 4 came with a modelling tool to make sugar roses. I have had a go at making roses in the past but they have always looked like cabbages. Using specialist flower paste and the new tool to roll the petals very thin, my roses were much more delicate and flower-like. I was quite pleased with the result. I used one of my own tried and tested recipes to make a chocolate cake with fudge icing as the vehicle for my little flowery creations.

Making the roses was one of those laborious repetitive tasks that requires a certain amount of concentration but frees your mind to wander. I found myself thinking a lot about my mum as a mother to me and my two sisters - about how terrifying it was for her giving birth for the first time knowing so very little about what to expect all those years ago - about a young woman suffering from post-natal depression with no medical support or understanding of the feelings she was experiencing - about a mum doing her best to care for her children. I made three roses, one to represent each of her three daughters. The number of leaves represents how many leaves it was possible to make out of the trimmings of sugar paste!

I was really pleased with the ivory colour that I achieved using gel food colouring - hugely disappointed with the limp shade of green that I managed using liquid food colouring. If I attempt this again, I shall definitely buy a better quality green colouring.

One Born Every Minute

One Born Every Minute is one of my few 'must watch' TV shows. There are some truly inspirational women and others that are just funny until the moment that the baby is handed to them and then suddenly, all the fuss they had been making is forgotten as they become totally lost in the moment of meeting their newborn for the first time. I will invariably feel the prickling of tears and if I happen to be holding one of my own babies, I will hug them a little tighter remembering the special day when they came into the world. I also feel a tiny stab of sadness that I will never again experience first hand that most incredible of journeys.

With five girls of my own (two of them in their twenties), I think it is a given that it is only a matter of time before one of them finds themself with child and has to prepare for that moment when the inevitable happens - labour and birth. I have been wondering what advice I can give them when that day comes and this is it:

Your body is about to do something amazing. Even as it is happening it is hard to visualise exactly what is going on. You have to trust that your body knows what it is doing even if your mind struggles to comprehend.


There is much to fear.  Will you make a fool of yourself? Will you cope with the pain? Will you know what to do? Will the baby be OK?


You must put your fear to one side.


Find a happy place in your mind where you can allow your body to work it's miracle. Feel the joyous hurt and know that tissues are stretching and accommodating and making possible.

Although this seems to last for an unendurable eternity, it is only a tiny moment in time. It will end and when it does, you will be changed forever in ways you never imagined. You will be a mother.

1988

2008

2008

2010

Celebrating the Children in Your Life

I was reminded of a joke yesterday:

How did Mary Ingalls die?
She bled to death trying to read the cheese grater.

I didn't say it was a good joke.

For those of you who did not grow up loving Little House on the Prairie, rushing home from school on a Thursday to catch the 4pm start (no Sky planner then!), Mary Ingalls was the eldest daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. She lost her sight, learnt to read using Braille and eventually opened a school for the blind. So, a stupid joke that surfaced from somewhere in my memory bank as I tried 'to read the cheese grater' concealed by a particularly bubbly sink full of  washing up (curse those Fairy suds)  - result: blood in the washing up water and one very sore fingertip!

One very sore fingertip - but not so sore as to stop me blogging.

Blogging is beginning to be something of an addiction. I need my daily fix of verbal outpouring. As a newcomer to the world of online journals, I have been having a look around at other people's blogs - people more established who seem to know what they are doing rather than stumbling around in the dark like I am. I have been amazed by the wealth of interesting, informative and witty examples, many from stay at home mums just like me. Plenty to aspire to.

There is also no shortage of blog giveaways and competitions, which are always a bit of fun. I found a competition on the blog Diary of a First Child which invites you to create something to celebrate the children in your life. This ought to be easy for me as I feel I spend nearly every moment celebrating the fact that my amazing children are in my life. However, translating this into something specific that can be posted online left me at a bit of a loss.

When I was in labour with baby number six, my husband captured some of the experience on video. It was a disappointment that the hospital policy was such that the final moments could not be recorded but we kept the camera rolling until we were asked to turn it off. I wasn't sure how I would feel about seeing myself in such an intimate and personal situation, reacting in a primal, instinctive way rather than the more usual measured responses of home video footage that I was used to. When I watched it back, it felt amazing - reliving the drama of the moment without the distraction of the pain and the uncertainty. It was also an opportunity to notice my husband's response to the event - a response that would otherwise have been lost in the sea of emotion that inevitably accompanies the miracle of childbirth. I have watched and re-watched the footage many times and each time it makes me smile how his normally deep voice becomes high pitched and unguarded. I love how my hand shakes as I reach down to touch my baby's soft little head - six births and that was the first time I'd ever done that. Six births had created a familiarity to the whole process but that familiarity did nothing to suppress the awe and wonder. It was breathtakingly magical.

I decided to edit together a few moments of my birth video to try and create 'something that celebrates the children in your life'. For me, nothing celebrates the children in your life better than evidence of that flood of love that springs from the deepest part of you when 'bump' becomes newborn - the flood of love that infuses every part of your being and NEVER diminishes.

I invite you to watch my video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIzsqKoiA80