It's the Thought That Counts, Right?

December 6th seems to be a popular day to be born. I have four facebook friends with birthdays today, and Laney has seven. That doesn't count several other non-facebook people we know who also celebrate their birthdays today. I always think of this day when I think of Laney's birthday because this was the day that I was due when I was pregnant with her, and since she was my first I was under the mistaken impression that I was destined to deliver her on the 6th. But everyone knows that 1st babies rarely are born by their due dates ... I just hoped to be the exception. So anyway, out of all of my kids Laney is the only one where I remember the day she was due as well as her actual birthday. That makes it super easy for me to remember her cousin, Brenna's, birthday, since she was born today. It's the only extended relative birthday that I know off the top of my head.

Well, anyway, Laney had several friends from school who have birthdays today, so she decided to make cupcakes for them and bring them to school today. She stayed up a little later last night and made these:

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cupcakes!
Aren't they beautiful?

Cupcakes were made and frosted and then put in a travel container. Everything was ready for the next day deliveries. All was good.

And that's when our sad tale of broken dreams begins ...

It started out as any normal school day for the Blau Family. Laney, Savannah, and I woke up early, got ready for the day, and headed out to seminary at 5:30 am. As Laney and I were walking through the kitchen to head to the garage, I saw her container of cupcakes sitting on the stove. My immediate thought was protective. I knew that if those cupcakes were sitting there, looking oh so delicious, when the younger kids woke up, it would be too big of a temptation for them to resist. We needed to get them out of their line of sight in order to preserve them for her school friends. I told Laney to grab the Tupperware container and stick it on top of the refrigerator. Laney, thinking that I was a super wise mother and therefore should know what I'm talking about, grabbed the cupcakes by the holder atop the container and proceeded to move her bounty. As she grabbed the holder I had a fleeting thought. I thought I should remind her that the clasps that attach the lid of the container to the bottom sometimes slip, so she needed to make sure that it was secure before she lifted the cupcakes over her head. But, as I react to most fleeting thoughts that go through my head, I ignored the thought and turned toward the garage door. 

And that's when I heard it ... a gentle, soft thud. You know ... kind of like the whisper soft landing of a baby bird in its mother's nest.

Or the sound of Laney's birthday celebration dreams dying right before our eyes.

I turned around, and immediately Laney and I screamed in unison as we saw this ...

Oh no!

Herman and Savannah came tearing into the kitchen. Herman must have been terrified after hearing our screams because he came all the way from the other side of the house in record time.

We must have sounded like we had encountered an intruder or broken a leg or something. Instead, they just found Laney staring at the kitchen floor without speaking, dumbfounded.

All that hard work gone to waste. It is at moments like this that I can tell that she is Herman's daughter because I would have been in tears. Laney just looked at the gigantic mess at her feet and shrugged her shoulders as she said, "Oh well." Poise in the face of kitchen disasters ... not a talent I have, I'm afraid. Savannah, ever the one to find humor in a situation, looked down at the mess, noticed that there were some of the cupcakes that landed atop the pile, keeping them free of the kitchen cooties on the floor, so she said, "Well, since you won't be delivering these now, I think I'll have one for breakfast."

So Laney's hopes of bringing birthday joy to her friends at school didn't quite go as planned. Luckily, she had put aside one cupcake in the fridge overnight to give to Herman, so she was able to take that to school to give to her friend, Holly. All was not lost. 

So happy birthday to all the December 6th birthdays out there. There was a girl, here in Missouri, who was thinking of making it a day to remember. And it was ... just not in the way she had planned.