Magical Vision

I'll admit that I spend too much of my day on the Internet. I have down time at work, and that the only thing I have to do. So I see a lot of things. I get inspired to do a lot of things. Some good, some bad.

One of the things I knew I always wanted to do when I had children was a cake smash photo session. The kids always looked so cute sticking their little fingers in the cake, rubbing it all over themselves. I thought it would be easy. I can make a cake. I can take a pretty picture. Done!

I started planning to do this with Abby about a month ago. I carefully looked for a time when I knew she would be happy, and the light would be good. It worked out that a weekend came available, so I penciled it in. I began to worry because they weather for the weekend had shifted and it was going to be chilly. The only space I had to take these photos was outside. So, I pushed things back a day, giving the weather a chance to warm up. Which it did... yeah!

I carefully made a cake. I'm not a great decorator, but I borrowed a large cupcake pan from a friend, thinking that would be easier to frost than a cake. Wrong.... I skimped, trying to use up things in the pantry, so I used canned frosting. I knew I should have made butter cream. The frosting was way to soft to pipe onto the cake in any design fashion. Plus I colored it hot pink instead of light pink (which worked out better in the end). I thought I could chill the frosting and then pipe it. That only made it not stick to the cake. So, I ended just squeezing it out on the cake, trying to make it look like ribbon and lace. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't pretty either. But it had to do. I stuck it in the fridge so the frosting wouldn't slide off till it was show time.

I tired to choose a time during the day that Abby was happiest. It seemed like we had reached that point, Gene was around to help, so I said lets just do this. We took everything outside and set her down, and just like that... tears. She was so upset. She didn't want to touch the cake. She didn't want anything to do with the cake. We tried to show her she could touch it. She didn't like that. We tried to show her she could eat it. She didn't like that. The only thing she did like was when Woody came over to clean up the mess we made showing her what she could do.

I somewhat expected that she wouldn't like it. I was sort of prepared that it could do like that. I'm not upset that she didn't smile and have a good time. I still captured a great memory. After we were done we played in the bathtub. Those pictures I love more than the cake pictures. I think they capture how much she loves the bath and her great, genuine, smile.

She gets her own cake at her birthday party, so we will see how she likes it then. Maybe on a different day, in a different setting, it will be ok. Or maybe not, and that's ok too.