Sometimes you try your best and it still seems like it’s not good enough. Most days are hard but some are much harder than others. I hate to always be complaining but I feel so terribly stressed and tired. Being a breastfeeding mother to an infant with allergies to certain foods is taking a toll on me. Motherhood after 40 is no walk in the park and doing it alone is even harder.
I’ve had to eliminate many foods from my diet and it has left me feeling starved, malnourished and weak, but when I look at her and I see that her skin has been soft and smooth for a few days, or a week, or two weeks, it makes me want to keep doing what I’m doing, even if the cost is my health. I know I cannot make it down this path for long.
It was a very difficult pregnancy with one complication after another. Visiting the high risk clinic every other week to measure the baby’s growth, which was always weeks behind her gestational age. Having to stop working because of the complications. Being abandoned by my husband because I got pregnant (apparently all by myself) and being told by him that he “didn’t care to know anything about the pregnancy”, “wanted no part in her life”, and instructed me that she wasn’t allowed to carry his last name. Then, losing my dear, sweet grandmother who I grew up calling Mommy because she raised me. She meant as much to me as my children do. My heart was shattered into many tiny pieces.
My little baby wasn’t growing at the normal rate and I ended up being induced because the Doctors figured she’d be better off on the outside rather than inside my body. Even on the outside, she’s still facing challenges. Though not at all serious, they are challenging nonetheless. I came home from the hospital and found my “husband” already in love with someone else. He had an exceptional spring in his step. Exercising and taking care of himself, but looking at the baby, his biological offspring, with sheer disgust and absolutely no emotional attachment.
In order to provide basic things for her (and her sisters too) I needed to restart my at-home cake business. I wasn’t mentally or physically ready but financially I had no choice. It is such a blessing to have found a way to earn a few dollars each week without really having to leave my home. This works out beautifully for me, especially since my anxiety has been pretty severe since the loss I suffered. Only God knows how I got through the birth of my baby.
So here I am, struggling silently. Expressing my thoughts and feelings only through this blog. Hoping that no one even reads it, yet still hopeful that it brings me some kind of healing. Getting it all out of my system. I do not wish to carry these negative memories with me any longer. I’m letting it all go. I will only hold on to the beautiful ones. My baby came at a time when I needed love and that she is. She is love.
I’m sharing a photo of a cake that I created this weekend. Though it may seem cute, it has added to my anxiety. One day later, the customer contacts me as she got to her son’s birthday party to let me know that the cake is a disaster. The globe fell over on the icing, the fondant rocket ship fell off and the letters of the name also fell over on the board. She says it was because I “rushed the cake and didn’t let it cure properly”, which I really did not. She picked up the cake a day before, took it home, also kept it refrigerated, and on the way to the party something happened. But yes, it was my fault. It is easy to blame someone else. I apologized and offered solutions on what to do to salvage the cake.
The ball/globe was made of rice crispy treats and was kept refrigerated with a toothpick inserted into the bottom with which to stick into the cake. Somehow it managed to be knocked over. I advised her to place the rocket ship onto the messy spot that the ball left in the icing to hide the mess, to stand the letters of her son’s name up against the base of the cake, and to put a little water on the back of the letters of the NASA logo to glue them back to the fondant globe.
Situations like these upset me very much and it’s these very experiences that make me want to throw in the towel and walk away from this type of work. Is it really worth it? To leave my baby and other children hungry while I work on making decorations, baking, torting and filling, stacking, covering, decorating cakes, and cake boards. Is it worth it when I run constantly back and forth to nurse the baby during the night while pulling an all-nighter to complete a cake order? Is it worth it when I think I’m making a difference in someone’s life for that moment when they see the cake and feel joy? Is it worth it when I’m handled in a disrespectful manner for something that isn’t my fault? Is it even worth it when my other young children are tearing the house apart because I cannot pay attention to them, or cannot cook a decent meal, and only feed them pizza or Chinese food because I’m too busy with a cake order?
What am I really teaching them, these children who are my world? That others’ happiness and wants are more important than theirs? This is so far from the truth but in the end the dollar sign always wins. How can I put shoes on their feet if I don’t make a sacrifice? How can I cover their little bodies during the cold winter months? When will it get better? Does it ever get easier?
I feel immensely blessed to have found a creative outlet where I can be a stay-at-home mom, earn a little cash, watch my babies grow, and be part of someone’s special celebration all at the same time. This… creating cakes, is my therapy. I can get lost in cake decorating for hours and hours and not feel the least bit hungry or tired. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for my now 5 month old infant daughter.
I’ve basically been pulled back into the cake world. Although my plan was to start slowly, limiting myself to only 1 cake order per week, it seems like it’s not happening that way.
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