“The Spring Festival is next Friday, Mom. You’re home on Thursdays, so you can help me bake a cake for this year’s Cake Decorating Contest!”

This request (or declaration?) came from my 10 year old daughter last week. In years past, my contribution to the Spring Festival has been limited to a 2 liter of soda, while I watch in appreciation as the other parents organize the festival and work the booths. But, I just didn’t have the heart to tell her no this year because I feel like she’s heard “no” more often than “yes” lately.

After some research we decided on a cake decorated as a cell phone in her school colors complete with chicklet gum pieces for buttons and a twizzler antenna. This isn’t the first cake I’ve baked before (thank you, Betty Crocker), but it’s definitely the most intricate. I once baked a cake for my husband with the intentions of writing “Happy Birthday, Kevin!” but decided that was too difficult and narrowed it down to just “Kevin” instead.

So after I had two meetings in the morning, storytime with my toddler at the library, and logged in several hours remotely to the office, my daughter came home ready to bake. After giving my toddler her own little cupcake to decorate with icing…okay, she ate more icing than what made it on the cupcake… the little baker and I got to work. It was a tense couple of hours (no delete button with when you’re dealing with icing!), but it came out better than I expected. It was a great learning experience and confidence builder for my daughter.

While we didn’t place in the contest, our cake was chosen by a winner of the cake walk in the first half hour. We were proud of our efforts, and that’s what matters.

The following week, my daughter came home with a new request. “They’re accepting nominations for PTO, Mom. I think you ought to put in your name!” And to that, I answered, “No.”