I love tradition and one of my favourites is to make this cake that my mom used to make for us when we were kids. It is called a caterpillar cake because of the shape – although I highly recommend introducing it to new young guests before it hits the table as cake “that, while it contains a very distinct caterpillar taste, does not have as many caterpillars in it as you might think “
Keep your serious face on.
There might be something wrong with me that I love that moment- and yet people keep sending their kids to my art camp where this cake is always served.
Anyway, with the big girls, mainly the members of JORO, who eat with us once a week, in a sharing that is truly spectacular- so spectacular that there is practically a wait list at their school of girls begging to come each week- we name the caterpillar after boys of interest or boys of passe compose.
Then we eat it. This may seem barbaric or tribal.
We have been eating this cake together since our kids were really little.
Last week as we were looking into the eyes of this caterpillar cake (and his friend, junior) about to eat him, I looked around the table and thought ‘next year we are losing 1/3 of this group to University’. I got choked up. 1/3 of the noise, the joy, the sorrow, the trouble, the triumph, the tears, the excitement, the energy. All of this tradition.
It is really the smallest things that grab you.
I have rare moments where I feel like I have the great shrinking family. 4 became 3 and now soon 2. I know it is not really true in the way I mostly see my life and I know it is going the way it is supposed to as far as our children moving away but
I dont like things getting smaller.
I like things getting bigger.
Even if it means less caterpillar for me.