Trayvon

I wrestle with what to say as I begin to write this. I am afraid I won’t give the entry the attention it deserves but I refuse to remain silent. Silence means you accept a situation for what it is. I don’t.

I don’t know what it is like to be a young, black male by any means. I do know what it is like to be a mother, and I do understand discrimination as the mother of a disabled child, as the mother of partially Hispanic children, and as a woman, so I hope I can draw from that and approach this fairly without seeming as if I am speaking for people of color.

I was a teenager once. I did many of the things that Trayvon has been accused of by the media, and then some. Should I have died as an unarmed person because of it? I often wear hoodies. It doesn’t make me a criminal.

The comments on various news stories make me ashamed to be a part of the white community.

Yes, if a black male shot a white teenager without reasonable cause, he would be charged with murder. That is how it should have been. When you murder, you deserve to be arrested, period.

Yes, the black community is outraged. They should be. All the kid did in that moment was walk in the rain with a hoodie on. Everyone should be outraged.

Even if (and I don’t buy it) he attacked Zimmerman as he got into his vehicle, fists are no match for a gun.

As a mother, especially one of teenagers, I am disgusted. This was a 17 year old child. He was unarmed. He had skittles and tea. He was shot and left for dead. Nobody attempted to use his cell phone to identify him and he was left as a John doe for 3 long days while his parents worried and wondered where he was. Nobody of any skin color deserves that and especially due to their skin color alone.

If I walked down the same street with a hoodie in the rain, I would not have been given a second glance.

This is not Trayvon’s fault. He did not have a gun. He. Had. Skittles.

Skittles for his baby brother, at that.

We should all be angry. We should all demand justice. Somehow you relate to this story. Perhaps as a parent. Perhaps as a friend of someone meeting his description. Perhaps as yourself. Be angry. Insist something is done, before it happens again.

Rest in peace, young man.

What do I say to that?

Kid 5 was pushing a truck around the kitchen earlier. He was trying to stand and ended up using the truck as a means to walk along. (It’s a big truck.) he told me “I think my feet are broke.”

He knows. He is so, so smart for a two year old but not old enough to have it all explained. All he knows is that he is different. He wants to have fully functioning legs like the rest of us.

How do you explain a hole in a brain to a two-year-old? How do you tell them that with ridiculous amounts of work, they will walk?

I think, in this moment, that his cognitive levels are a curse. He has to deal with this and can’t even be blissfully ignorant.

I knew he would want answers someday. I just didn’t know it would be now.

Cake 4: St. Patrick’s Day birthday

The hat is devils food with chocolate filling and the base is devils food with mint chocolate cream cheese filling. All is covered with vanilla icing and marshmallow fondant.

They absolutely loved the cake (outside anyway) when I dropped it off and it saved me having to run to a store for a gift so all in all, it was a success.

I am exhausted and I still have corned beef to eat and a kid to retrieve from the birthday party so I am going to rest. I just wanted to update after yesterday’s mention of the cake.

Cake 3: hello kitty

The cake stuff is coming along just fine. Yesterday I had my first request, though it wasn’t anything specific, so I made a hello kitty cake out of devil’s food cake and iced it with a piping bag and star tip. She was thrilled. She just got out of the hospital and it really lifted her spirits.

Tonight I am doing a St. Patrick’s Day themed sixteenth birthday cake for a friend of kid #1’s. She waited until tonight to ask and it’s the guy’s 16th, so how do I say no? I am not pleased that she sat on this request for 2 weeks, though. He needs it by 4 p.m. tomorrow. I’ll do it and wish him a happy day but grumble, grumble. I hoped I could sleep tonight. Oh well.

In other news, kid 5 has really been trying hard to walk and has taken steps many times. He can walk with a flimsy dollar store shopping cart so it’s mostly a confidence issue, but he’s getting there.

He also used a fork successfully last night to eat steak. This is such a huge weight lifted because I have been so worried about how he’d feed himself. He still needs a lot of work but what a huge leap!

I finally have sleeping toddlers and a kitchen I can work in so off I go. I will try to attach a photo of the last cake from my iPod.

That’s laughable.

Those that have followed me from livejournal know the saga of my mother- and sister-in-law and those that didn’t have picked up on small mentions of it.

I manage to get along with them by ignoring most of what they say. If I take it to heart, I just get angry. Today they had me trying not to laugh out loud, though.

Sister-in-law went to some new cupcake place that charges $2.50 for a cupcake. She brought them to my mother-in-law’s and had everyone try them. I didn’t eat any because I’m sick of cake, but hubby said it was overrated.

In the course of this, they kept trying to talk me in to opening a cupcake business. MIL’s bright idea was that they could help out and my mom could help out and we would all get rich.

I don’t want a cupcake business. I don’t really care about the inside of the cake. I want it to taste appetizing and make people happy but it isn’t what drives me. I like taking a cake as a base and using edible clay to make art. You can’t do the same thing with cupcakes. Not like that anyway.

It doesn’t interest me. It isn’t the point of what I am trying to accomplish. I can’t see myself spending 30 years or more squirting dollops of frosting on cupcakes all day and all night. That may be another person’s ideal career but not mine.

In my state, selling food is hard. There are so many rules. I doubt anyone will arrest you for selling a cake here and there but there are big fines for anyone that sells prepared food without various building codes (like a triple sink) and a sanitation license. I live in a rental. I would need a building away from my home.

I don’t have credit, collateral, a business model, or anything else. I don’t need it because I don’t want to sacrifice my time with my family to make cupcakes around the clock.

What? So we can get rich? You won’t. Period.

MIL can’t stand long enough to bake a roast because her weight is so hard on her knees. How is she going to help?

SIL can’t cook.

My mom has numerous health problems, would never take orders from me, and can’t work even if she could handle it (she can’t) because she is on social security.

So I would be left holding the bag on a business I didn’t want, working day and night, and not taking care of my family.

SIL said something like “that’s what having a job is.” If I am going to start a business, it isn’t going to be something that is thankless and boring and takes years to turn a profit. I’ll do something I like.

I swear, this is why I don’t listen to them. They hear what they want to hear and nothing more and then they don’t let up, ever.

I will continue to make cakes until I am good enough to sell them and then I will do a few at a time. I don’t need to get rich, hire help, or lock myself in to something I don’t care about this way.

On with the cake!! You want to sell cupcakes, then get baking!

Cake 2: my little pony

I was so proud of this one! I kept looking in the fridge to check it out.

The cakes are chocolate with raspberry chocolate cream cheese filling (6 inch) and lemon with lemon mint cream cheese filling (10 inch). They’re frosted with vanilla buttercream and then covered in fondant. The decorations are mostly vanilla buttercream, except for a fondant rainbow and plastic pony. Go toybox!

Cake 1: honeymoon in Belize

I am pretty proud of this one! Thanks to Cara for the idea, and happy anniversary!

Challenge Me

I have a request.

As you know, I have been teaching myself how to make cakes. I’m feeling uninspired. If I had something specific suggested to me, I would just make the cake according to that theme.

I am no Buddy Valastro and I am just a beginner so keep that in mind but I need all the practice I can get. So, if you were my neighbor and I was making a cake for you, what theme would you choose? (if you really are my neighbor, expect to eat this cake.)