This past weekend we celebrated my son's first birthday by having friends and family over to grill hamburgers, hot dogs, and of course, eat cake.
It was a perfect day surrounded by my favorite people. The weather was beautiful and the food was yummy. And right around 5:00, we brought out the cake. This is where the day took a left turn.
In the days following his birthday party, I had growing suspicions that cake might not be Max's favorite thing. At Leah's house, he tried a bite of cupcake. I noticed his face wrinkle at the icing, and then instead of putting the bite of cupcake in his mouth, he tried to feed it to the dog.
The day of his party, I couldn't decide if his personal cake, that I made from scratch, should have chocolate or vanilla icing, so I did a taste test. I offered him two fingers, one with chocolate icing, the other with vanilla. My thought process was, I'll let him taste both, offer both fingers again and the finger he goes after first, well, that would be the icing for his cake. But Max wouldn't taste either finger. He backed away in horror from the brown icing and when I put the white icing up to his lips, he almost gagged. This should have been a red flag for me.
But how could that be! Doesn't every child dive into their first cake and smear it all over their face, while all the adults stand around cheering and laughing. Isn't it a joyous moment, the first time cake touches your lips, the sweet sugar icing, cake!! Who doesn't love cake? Everyone loves cake!
Well, not Max. At his party when it was time to bring out the cake, Max shrunk into his highchair and stared at me with frightful eyes. I brought it closer and his face shriveled. No, not cake. I sat it on his highchair and backed away. Max started crying. I tried to entice him by digging in the cake, but no, nothing but tears. He reached his arms up and wanted out, out of the whole situation. He didn't want the cake, he didn't want the singing, he didn't want all the eyes on him. I lifted him up and took him into the other room and apologized. "It's ok Max, you don't have to like cake."
And so I learned another lesson as a mother. My baby boy is becoming his own person, with his own likes and dislikes, and no matter what, I can never force my own love of cake onto my son. The party was for us, not for Max. All Max wanted was to play, and get love from his mommy and daddy.
In the end, it was ok. Mommy and daddy ate his cake the next morning for breakfast.
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