Hell Week for me is not a reference to fraternity initiations or three-a-day sports practices. Sadly, it is the week that my two oldest daughters celebrate their birthdays.....two days apart.....and two days after the frenetic kid-candy-costume-fest that is Halloween. Every year, no matter how much planning goes into Hell Week, it is always, well, you know. Any time I get too busy, its really hard for me to live in the moment and enjoy the things that really matter. Despite the fact that I should enjoy celebrating my girls' birthdays, every year during this particular week, I'm usually swamped with costumes, candy, piñatas, giggling girls (think slumber parties), and baked goods galore (think Halloween AND birthday treats for school plus birthday cakes for the parties---all times 2!). When its all over, I'm usually exhausted, and both myself and my kitchen floor are covered in a fine (OK, thick) dusting of powdered sugar.
I have always baked my kids' birthday treats from scratch. Always. I have made castles and ducks and horseshoes. Sponge Bobs and snowmen and ponies. I have fashioned cupcakes into hamburgers and pumpkins, brownies into fairy wands, and ice cream cones into things too numerous to name. I have built cakes out of donuts, cakes out of ice cream, and cakes out of carved slices of other cakes. With the birth of our first son two years ago, I have branched out into baseballs and tractors as well. I have possibly, quite literally gone through hundreds of pounds of powdered sugar making homemade buttercream icing for all of these treats. Powdered sugar is always flying around our kitchen this time of year, and believe me, that stuff is hard to clean up! I've found it not only all over me and the floor, but on the cat's back and in the baby's ear just to name a few unlikely places. Every year, about halfway through Hell Week, when I'm in the midst of trying to complete the Halloween treats, the school treats, and the party treats, I feel like I'm trapped in some sort of powdered sugar purgatory, from which I may never escape!
This year, as I was calculating how many pounds of powdered sugar to purchase for the numerous "festivities", our daughter Maya threw me for a loop when she requested a guinea pig cake for her birthday slumber party. This shouldn't have come as a surprise, because she is guinea pig crazy, for reasons that really deserve a post of their own, so I will not digress. Now despite all my years of cake creation, I am not a super talented cake artist, and frankly, the idea of trying to create a guinea pig cake under the best of circumstances struck fear in my heart. Considering that her slumber party was scheduled for the night of November 1 (meaning I would be baking and creating this guinea pig in the less than 24 hours I would have AFTER trick or treating and BEFORE the slumber partiers arrived), a guinea pig cake was more than I could fathom. So I did something I have never done.....and never thought I would ever do.......I hired someone to bake the cake. Cue Mom Guilt here.
Now this may seem silly to you. You may think I am ridiculous for feeling guilty about this. Maybe you always hire someone to make your kids' cake. Maybe you buy it from Wal Mart. Maybe you order it from Dairy Queen. That's great! There's no judgement coming from me about this! Believe me, this is ALL about me and my own personal hang up. I know you've got one or two or ten yourself. This just happens to be one of mine. I am the mom who bakes all of her kids cakes from scratch. Its what I do. Its how I show my love and devotion. But somehow, twelve years and four kids later, something that started out as a thing I wanted to do, and more importantly, that I ENJOYED doing for my kids, turned into something I HAD to do. And once you HAVE to do something, you stop cutting yourself any slack. You stop allowing yourself to be flexible; to change plans; or to go with the flow based on the current schedule. Sadly, not only had I started to dread the girls' birthday cakes, I was including the activity in something that I actually called "Hell Week". Ouch.
So I took a deep breath and I called upon a talented friend from church who had no qualms about creating a guinea pig cake. I felt guilty about it all week. I felt like I was copping out and letting my daughter down. I dreamed about guinea pig cakes and I how I might be able to create one after all. And then....... I went trick or treating with my kids around our neighborhood.......I went to our church's Harvest party for trunk or treating.......I visited with old friends and met a delightful new one. And then, since I wasn't preoccupied by the fact that I had to go home and bake, I actually ended up having fun! Later that night, I didn't rush into the kitchen and begin flinging flour and powdered sugar around the room. Instead, I helped the kids sort and trade their piles of candy. I tucked them into bed without rushing. I listened to Maya recite in precise detail how every minute of her slumber party was going to play out the next night. I rehashed the kindergarten Halloween party at school with Adelynn. I debated with McKenna about the best costumes at the church trunk or treat. My mind was clear and focused on the conversation and not distracted by what all I still had to do and how late I was going to be up. And then I went to bed and got a good night's sleep. The next day I calmly prepared for the party---no yelling, no rushing, no craziness, no flying powdered sugar. When I opened the box to reveal the most adorable guinea pig cake I could have imagined to my precious girl, she was nothing less than thrilled. She wasn't judging me. She wasn't feeling let down or less loved because I hadn't slaved over the creation myself. Nope. And the Mom Guilt just disappeared.
Now this doesn't mean that I will be hiring out all the family birthday cakes from now on. What it does mean, is that if I need to, I will. If circumstances are crazy and time is short, and we have a few dollars to spare, I certainly won't feel guilty if I hit the cake counter at Wal Mart. The whole experience reminded me of something most parents already know deep down. The best gift we can give our kids is our time, our attention, and our happiness! If the very important "thing" we are trying to do for them is making us grumpy, angry, anxious, or stressed, its most likely not such an important thing after all.
I guarantee whether you are a mom or not, there are things you do simply because you've always done them. You probably started doing them for a really good reason too, but somewhere along the way the reason was lost in your own powdered sugar purgatory. One of the literal definitions of purgatory is "a miserable situation; an extremely uncomfortable, painful, or unpleasant experience." Hmmmm. Certainly there is no joy there!
Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, JOY, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." If I have no joy, how can I say I belong to Christ? The choices we make, even with the small stuff, about how to spend our time and energy will reflect whether we belong to Christ or to the world. If the things you are doing for the sake of others are joyless; if they are sapping your strength, making you depressed, causing anxiety, making you scream at your kids, I say, free yourself from your powdered sugar purgatory! CHOOSE JOY!
