Rainbows & lace {her first baking gig}
Coming alongside my kids to help them grow in their interests and talents looks so different with each kid. For this girl it looks like the photo above – washing her dishes while she bakes up a storm. Sure, she could clean her own dishes, but I’ve learned when my hands are busy at the sink I’m less likely to hover and offer unsolicited advice. I’m close by when she needs me, but distracted enough to let her do her thing…which includes making mistakes to learn from and letting HER creativity shine.
Last week she baked up a storm – her first official baking job meant taking time to practice new skills and make notes of the things she needed to change. Thankfully some of our neighbors have been playing volleyball in our yard each night, so she had plenty of willing taste testers for the practice cake.
She starts 6th grade next week. One morning last week I began telling her the story of my 6th grade year. It was awful. I chose to go one direction and my previous friends chose another. There was relentless pranking and making fun of me at school – we even had to have the police involved. It was lonely, hurtful, and a bit traumatic (still so vivid in my mind). BUT losing one group of friends meant I made a new one. I told my daughter that really dark season led to one of the brightest lights in my life – my friend Rachel. We’ve been friends now for 29 years.
Later that day (not knowing I had just shared our friendship story with my daughter) Rachel sent me a text asking if she could hire my daughter to make a birthday cake. With that text she became my girl’s first official customer and made sure part of her payment included a $1 bill to frame.
What felt like a year I wouldn’t survive ended up being the year God gave me a loyal friend that would do life side by side with me for the long haul….and a friend that would always be around to cheer on my kids.
It seemed just right that Rachel was the first customer and the design she chose was a rainbow cloud cake.
As soon as she finished the rainbow cake, she began working on a 20th birthday cake for her cousin Hailey. It ended up being a bit taller than planned, but it looked super cool and tasted delicious. When it was time to serve the cake, she cut off the top chocolate ‘lace’ and crumbled it on the slices.
I posted a few videos on Instagram related to both cakes:
