Chocolate cake and a whole lot more

This is a little parable about chocolate cake-but, like all the best parables, it's actually about a whole lot more than flour, butter, sugar, eggs and...oh (the best part) icing. For some reason (Sian, a creative child with Attention Deficit, is easily bored) my daughter decided to bake a cake this morning at her dad's house. No matter that he had already made his fabulous Christmas cake, a confection rife with fruit, brandy and marzipan icing. Near that cake sat a bag of mom's pfferneuse cookies-so what? Fulfilling her own inner urge to create, Sian got out the ingredients for a decadent confection-with the odd exception of the icing, which she insisted her father buy at the grocery store! No wonder, then, that the first item her dad put in my car when I met him was half of the cake. Those of you who know me, and now those who don't, will know that there is no need for anyone to give me candy and cake-I am perfectly capable of going to the grocery store myself. But even I have my limits. Quickly I began to plot-what neighborhood children could be invited over tomorrow? How about palming some off on Aunt Heidi when we meet her for the musical in Philadelphia in the evening? When Colin began to ponder his dessert choices, I quickly suggested a slice of cake. But when he got Sian's permission to have a slice, it came with a significant condition: the he tell her whether whether it was good. Realizing we didn't have a large window of time, I asked him what he planned to tell her. "If not good, I won't tell her," Colin said. "If it is good, I'll tell her." As he stuck his fork in and prepared to taste, he prayed "Please make this cake good." And something graceful occured, for certain-for when Sian came in for the verdict, my uncannily wise little boy gave her a big hug and said "If the cake were a person, I'd marry her." Squirming out of his embrace, his older sister looked embarrassed...and pleased. Not that she would admit it-after all, who relishes compliments from a little brother? One slice down...only ten more to go.