Love Those Cupcakes

OK, so I know the birthday celebration is over, but here I am, posting a picture of the cupcakes I made for Owen. Mostly, I'm posting to just annoy Jim, because he asked me how long I was going to keep talking about those cupcakes, and that I really needed to just get over myself. But come ON - those were too darn cute.

This, my friends, is the pinnacle of my baking career, even topping the Peep sunflower cake for Easter in terms of absolute cuteness.

And this is it. I'm done. I can do no cuter. So now, I have to convince all of my children that they want Elmo cupcakes from now until they turn 18 (at which time I will let them pick out their own cake from the dessert menu of a fine dining establishment - with no chicken nuggets on the menu- in which we will undoubtedly be eating by then...right?...please tell me that this is true). OK, they can either have Elmo, or the Peep cake. I'm flexible.

Besides just annoying my husband, there is another point to posting the picture of my Elmo masterpiece. It is kind of like in that movie As Good As It Gets, where Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt "You make me want to be a better man." even though we all know he's always going to be a nasty old curmudgeon.

That is the way I feel about baking for my kids. They make me want to be a better cook. A better mom. A better person. And yes, we all know I am never going to be Martha Stewart or even a good cook. But darn it, if they don't make me want to be, whether I enjoy it or not. They make me look wistfully at sewing machines in Hobby Lobby, even though I don't have the patience (or talent) to sew on a button. They make me want to arrange playdates, even though I'm bordering on antisocial. They make me want to spend evenings cutting and sorting math problems for a class full of six year olds who will never appreciate how long it takes. They make me want to turn my life upside down and make 3 trips halfway across the world to bring them home.

I love how they can make me want to do so many things I never thought I would want to do. That is the beauty...the Elmo is just the symbol.