An Analogy in Baked Goods

I set out this Valentine's day to make a treat for M, a heart shaped cookie with his initial on it.

I set out to make this.

This is what last year's cookie looked it.

This is what this year's cookie looked like.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I have extrapolated a series of analogous lessons about relationships, some more meaningful (and silly) than others from this sequence of cookie attempts that did not quite, uh, turn out as expected. (Warning: This blog post is about as saccharine sweet at the cookies above.)

1. They tell you that relationships and marriage are perfect, they are displayed around us in couples that seem to embody total perfection. There is very little confession to imperfection, for fear of judgement. Or acknowledgement of failure. Lesson: You can never perfectly copy another's relationship. And what's the fun in that? Yours will be messy and imperfect. But its YOURS, and that's rad.


2. Things change over time. You learn to add the right amount of food coloring. Last year I had to leave a note saying "It's an M!" This year he got it was a letter, although he guessed the wrong one. That's progress and I will take it. Lesson: Things take time. You can't learn it all at once, and each go at it will have its own set of problems. 


3. Looks can be deceiving. These cookies are just plain ugly under the frosting. Especially this years. But as my mom used to say, its all flour, sugar, and butter. It's going to taste fab. And you can't judge a relationship  (or a cookie) by what it looks like. Which leads me to another mama truism, you never know what goes on between two people. Lesson: Don't worry so much about how you appear to the outside world. Its whats on the inside that counts (and having the right amount of red dye, because too much of that is just gross).


4. When I unveiled this years cookie to M, this is what happened:

         M: "Oh! That is so sweet. And you put a W on it!"
          C: A W?
         M: Yeah! for "We!"
 Lesson: We all see things differently. But sometimes in our differences we can find the sweetest sentiments. 


To recover from the impending sweet hangover of this post, here's a little laugh for you.