Baby Nurse

Our youngest is in her first year of college, working her way toward eventually becoming a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner. She came home today with her very first, super-duper, official ID swipe card that allows her access to the newborn nursery at the nearby Level I Trauma Hospital. She is absolutely walking on air and can't wait 'til 9:00 tomorrow morning when she starts her volunteer work, holding and rocking and feeding all those teeny tiny precious little babies.

While trying to figure out a way to tie this post into cake-making, I realized I'm a far bigger cake nerd than I thought. I didn't take my first (and only) Wilton class until a few months after youngest daughter was born. But by golly, I had a two-layer, 9x13, homemade carrot cake frosted in cream cheese icing, decorated with pink-and-blue buttercream blocks spelling out "Welcome Baby", finished and wrapped and waiting nicely in the freezer, two weeks before her due date.

The minute I went into labor, I started obsessing about getting that cake out of the freezer so it could thaw out and we could eat it in celebration, immediately after she was born.

She was born at home, and her daddy delivered her, because my labor went so fast that the midwife didn't have time to get there. I had also invited our chiropractor to attend the birth, and he arrived after the event, as well. But he had a HUGE laugh over the giant, lavishly decorated, Welcome-Baby cake sitting proudly on the dining room table. Said he'd never seen anything like it before.

Even HE knew I was a cake-nerd. Way back then.