Cupcakes Make Everything Better

Perhaps, it was when during my last trimester I felt the need to down a hot chocolate everyday (or twice a day), eat a variety of mini-chocolate candies once every hour and dessert every night that my son is a sweet tooth monster. Benjamin is definitely a boy after my own heart. At his first birthday, there was no mistaking my child likes a good dessert when he sees one. On the day of his big party, Benjamin had two cakes - one for the guests to enjoy and the other, a round cake that feeds 6, just for him. Our thought, oh he's just going to smash it up it will be so cute. Well he did smash it somewhat but it mostly was smashed and went into his mouth. Methodically, Benjamin devoured the cake to the point where we had to take it away from him or he would have housed the entire cake by himself. Another example, when he passes the local ice cream shop he starts pointing and yelling, "i cream, i cream ba ba!" "Yes, I know Benjamin but every time we pass the place we can't have ice cream even though Mommy would love to we are on this walk to help Mommy get in shape." Sometimes after I say that I think he gives me a dirty look to say "Ba Ba are we in this together or what?!?"

Recently, he has started living by a similar philosophy to my own - "Sweets Make Everything Better" - in particular, cu-cakes (as he refers to them). Yesterday, I lived by our philosophy and ate a Toasted Almond bar when I was frustrated working on a client budget that needed to be XYZ amount of money and was coming in XYZ over budget -- Toasted Almond made this Mommy feel much better. However, this weekend Daddy knew this is what our boy needed to make the sad go away. On Saturday, Benjamin needed to get blood drawn from his one year wellness visit. Yes, I know Ben is now 6 months older but this Mommy also lives by the philosophy that, "Needles are bad" - simple but true. Knowing Wally also needed blood work, my two boys braved the worse. Benjamin was primed waiting in the LabCorp offices. He had no intentions of sitting quietly while Dad or Mom read to him. He wanted to run wild so much so he fell and bumped his lip on the floor which caused a multitude of tears even before the needle was in sight. Not a good start. Ben and Wally's names were finally called and we headed back. We did everything we could to prevent him from watching the needle enter his tiny little hand but he insisted on watching which brought on the tears pretty instantly (no judgement here - I still can't look at a needle without feeling faint). He braved through it but was mighty upset by the entire situation. After Wally was done, he said, "I know what will make Benjamin feel better - a cupcake!" As soon as been heard his favorite word in the English language the tears started to slow down a bit and a small smile could be seen forming on his face. Mommy, being a cupcake expert, picked out four of the best including one that looked like Elmo and Cookie. When we got home, we asked Benjamin which he would like and of course he picked the giant Elmo cupcake for him to enjoy. We took the cupcake and Ben to the deck to eat his favorite treat. Upon seeing the cupcake, Benjamin smashed his face right into the icing and come up with a big smile on his face knowing that cu-cakes do make everything better!