I love you so much, little cake, I bought you twice.

I finished filling out the permission slip for the field trip and had 5 minutes before I was due to help in my daughter's 3rd grade classroom. John had an important phone conference that night and since I was teaching my night course at Dallas Baptist University, Jack needed a ride to Boy Scouts.

As I'm getting off the phone with Amy, making arrangements for Jack, she says, " Sure, Steve can take him. By the way,how did your cake for tonight turn out?"
Stunned, I asked, 'Cake? What cake?"
"Oh, you didn't hear? They all bring homemade cakes and auction them off as a fundraiser."

Revelations like those are the stuff of every working mother's nightmare. Instantly you see your child's face swirling down a lollipop-looking funnel crying, saying, "I was the only one, I was the only one, the only Boy Scout without a ca-a-a-a-a-ke," as the perfect mothers look on and laugh in an evil, "whoo-whoo-whoo---haaa" way with green faces and flames shooting out of every orifice.

Think. Think. I concluded the call, changed clothes for class that night and sensing I would need an extra swipe of Mitchum, hit my armpits another lick. I raced to the store asking myself one question: What would Rachel Ray do? Angel food cake: check. Chocolate chips: check. Every conceivable gummy object in the candy aisle: check. I knew this grocery store field trip would make me late to help my daughter's class but I had no choice.

I arrived at Maggie Lee's school a few minutes late. I was present, in body only, as my mind tried to determine how early I would have to leave to actually throw this project together. There is nothing like the feeling of arriving late and having to leave early to make you feel like a real boob. I apologized to the other mom, explaining that we had a cake to make and her face went sheet-white. Turns out I wasn't the only surprised scout-mom on the block.

I got home, headed straight for the microwave and in one swift movement threw the chocolate chips in the microwave, opened the angel food cake with my teeth and extracted the 7 bags of gummy objects from the grocery sack. I am woman, hear me roar.

The chocolate melted, I positioned our cake in the store-bought box and ripped open the accoutrements like I was civil war hero slashing the enemy's throats in hand-to-hand combat.
The microwave dinged, I gave it one stir and plopped the cocoa coating over the cake.

I had Jack at the ready, armed with decorations. He placed the worms perfectly but then they slid down the molten river of fudge into the nether regions of the center hole. I dug in with both hands to rescue the little buggers and inadvertently smeared opaque coating all over their once-translucent little bodies. Snap! IF I COULD ONLY CURSE.

"Good enough!" I declared it and sprinted out the door, screeching off to my first class fully nauseated yet sparkling with a tiny twinge of pride.

I taught class with an air of, "I've been in the library researching all day." If they could have only seen me juggling gummy worms minutes before, I doubt they would've stuck around for the lecture. With class behind me, I headed for home. I walked through the door and was disappointed that my Boy Scout wasn't home, yet. I was anxious to see what his creation had fetched.

An hour later, he walked up to the house with a box which looked oddly familiar. Jack had a sheepish look on his face. I was mortified that they had somehow not auctioned off his cake. Steve looked even more sheepish. He said, "Well, he wasn't sitting next to me...he apparently bid on his own cake. He uh, bought his own cake. It was $22.00, you can pay it anytime."

"Oh, that's fine. Thank you for taking him, Steve." I said as Steve returned to his car.

"Are you mad, Mom?" Jack asked me as he walked in the door.

I laughed hysterically as I shook my head.

"I'm glad you liked your cake so much, son." I said.

'Yea, there was this other guy who wanted it but I wanted it more."

Then sprang to mind the sentimental story of the boy's homemade boat which he set free down a stream and lost, only to see in a store window a week later. As the tired story goes, he buys it, looks at it lovingly and says, "Little boat, I love you so much. I made you once and then I bought you. I really bought you twice."

As my little boy devoured our hastily-constructed creation, I doubt anything so poetic was wafting through his 7 year old mind. I just hoped he enjoyed that piece of angel-food cake which by my estimation cost about $8.75.

Twenty Questions

There is a game I play with my 9 and 7-year-old. I first played the game my Freshman year at Baylor.

It was Collins Dorm in the wee hours of the morning and Old Testament, Exam Two, loomed 7 hours in the distance. There is a certain beauty in knowing you only have to memorize information and regurgitate it once. So much for higher level thinking skills. Minds numb from a cookie dough hangover, Betsy and I decided a study break was in order.

"Twenty questions?" She asked as the closing of my $80.00 textbook made a loud thud. She threw out the first one; "If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it?"

As I fully reclined on my bed, my back burned from its' two-hour 90-degree pose
"Hm...I thought. Just one day? How would I spend it?" I pondered. Maybe it was the junk carbs talkin', but I came up with sky diving down a volcano in Hawaii, being serenaded by a very cute boy who had written original songs about how great I was, a trip up the Eiffel Tower for dinner and dessert on a gondola in Italy. It's my perfect day, who cares if it makes no sense? Step off.

For a few moments I was transported into another world. This world was ions removed from Bedouin Tribes and the JEDP theory like I would be grilled on in a few hours. My perfect day had nothing to do with time lines or nomadic people. No, that would've been my professor's perfect day if he were sleep-deprived in that dorm room at 2 a.m. answering our goofy questions. Now, wouldn't that have made The Baylor Lariat?

Twenty questions gave me a buzz then and it still does. As marriage has schooled me, however, not everyone revels in it. I've tried to drag my husband into participating and discovered an important fact: men don't highly regard the act of full emotional disclosure in a group setting. They get beaten for less. Since we women don't know how we feel about something until we hear ourselves discuss it, for us it's a horse of a different color. Or, camel of a different color if you are a Bedouin.

And, so, this game that used to provide an escapist study break is one I now play with my kids. When the pressure is on and 98% of my questions are 'Why did you leave your left shoe at Andy's?" "Where is that permission slip?" or "Can you prove you brushed your teeth by breathing on me?" we play it. As a parent, you serve as the boundary to funnel your kids in the right direction. Sometimes you feel like a NASCAR track. Tracks can get beaten up and you can too, emotionally, if you don't take an occasional nag break.

We've done twenty questions long enough now that my 9-year-old, Maggie Lee, likes to come up with her own. It's amazing what you can learn from a person's questions and hers are always fascinating. For a transcendent moment we are on level ground. I am in the racecar there with my kids, laughing all the way.

'What kind of earring would you be?" she asks.

I respond, "The one in Oprah's head so I could meet all of the interesting people she does. Or Bono's. No, does he even have an earring? OK, Oprah. Final answer."

She thinks my answers are funny. They hold their own against any crazy question she can dish out. Jack just thinks any reference to Oprah is humorous. In fact, he likes saying Oprah just for the way it makes his mouth move, especially when you hold the "ah." Go ahead and try it. It's ok.

Amid homework, T-ball and gymnastics, we take a few minutes to rest and enjoy each other. I am not concerned with any cheese-wad teachable moment but rather simply listening to the wheels turn inside my children's minds. These brief moments are a post-it note for me, a marked reminder of how fleeting these ticking-away days are.

Through this preposterous, hypothetical game one's mind is opened to "what if?" The paint brush is in your hand, no rules attached, and you can string scenarios together to your exact specification. We enter into a world where nothing is too silly, no answer is too candid and no time is more well-spent.

I don't get to choose the moments my children will remember forever but as I mentally record their precious giggles, I know this silly game is something their mother will certainly never forget.

Just leave the wrinkles there, pal

I am 36. I grew up in Houston, Texas, was on the Maplewood Marlins' swim team and spent all day from May to early September in my backyard pool. We had no sunscreen besides zinc oxide; a goopy, clown-white, caulk-like substance used only once the nose was a 3rd-degree scabbed-over carrot.

I got wrinkles. I worked hard for them; crows' feet, laugh lines, age spots, dimple creases. They're there. My hands shock me in their appearance, as well. Like a baby with extra dough, my wrists are wrinkled now, too. Even the underpart which I know never got any uv-a or uv-b rays.

I am a comedian and not a supermodel so it's no big whoop. You could have 5 chins and a mullet but funny is no respector of appearances. ie; Carrot Top.

It had come time for new headshots for my promotional material. I contacted a great photographer here in Dallas and a week later, set out for my noon appointment. On the way there I got lost, got a ticket and was so frustrated, I cried all of my makeup off. I arrived at the studio and the photog says,"You may want to redo that makeup."

To which I replied, "I didn't bring any makeup."

Despite my emotional trauma and lack of makeup, I decided to forge ahead and leave the results to The Lord. He cares about headshots, you know. What can I say? My theology is completely practical.

The photographer seemed pleasantly surprised with the outcome as we reviewed the frames by computer.
"Ok, let's decide which ones we like and go from there." he said.
Not knowing if, "going from there," meant slapping the image on a coffe mug or burning them, I nodded in ignorant agreement.

We made our selections, then he emoted,
"Let's do the magic." He selected one photograph and with a click of his mouse he erased my smile lines, my tiny chin mole, my crows' feet and made my teeth neon white.

"What a beautiful person," I thought, "who is she?" She wasn't the college me, she looked different than that. The face was fuller and the eyes, wiser. No, she was a different person altogether. She was an uber-jinny and I was filled equally with admiration and disdain for her. At that moment, I was a bald man being offered a really great wig.

In a self-startling turn of events, I looked at the photographer and said,
"You can just leave the wrinkles."

"What? You want these just the way you are? Well, here, I can feather it really lightly so that you get some of the character but still look better." he compromised.

"No, I'm good."

And I felt good. I was truly amazed at my choice. Come to find out, I was pretty attached to my tiny chin mole and my rakey-looking forehead when my eyes flew wide open. Like that hilarious little blonde host on, 'Queer Eye for the Staright Guy' always says, "Who knew?"

Maybe, as my husband postulates, it's just way too much Oprah-intake, but, I had come to 'own' my wrinkles. I have surely looked much younger, much more glamorous and much thinner in my lifetime but oddly enough I had never been more content with my own imperfections.