I made 40 Cat in the Hat cupcakes for Nathan and Emma's classes at school today. It was Dr. Seuss day, and all the kids went to school in their pajamas. One of the moms was making green eggs and ham for the class and I started to feel that I needed to do something. Something Seussy.
I had marshmallows. Marshmallows look a lot like Cat in the Hat's hat if you wrap a string of thin red licorice around them. Yes, it was genius. It was so much fun - okay, the first 30 were (the first 5). They ended up looking so cool that even the baby was impressed.
Of course I made several errors. Like Lilly kept wanting attention and hugging my legs, so I gave her a burning candle to play with, that singed her hair. And Emma wanted me to stay with her and watch a play at her school and I was so sweaty in my pajamas, I just wanted to get out of there and start making the cupcakes. I kept thinking I should be doing something else, and by doing something else, I was missing something else. Why is life like that? Why do you only realize that when you have kids? Because you know that in no time they won't want you to stay at school and play with them? It's hard not to take every opportunity. But I was itching to do something creative that involved sugar and cartoon animals. I think Dr. Seuss was calling to me beyond the grave. (He's dead, right?) Sometimes you have to throw your real life out the window and build a cat out of marshmallows.
I still got to the end of the day, with my lovely kids. Everyone's nestled in, clean, fed, asleep. A day full of poems and nonsense, fun colorful words. Dr. Seuss had some pretty basic messages about love and order, that these things count, even when they are served by an insane cat with whimsical ideas. I recognize that inner cat. Opening your heart (or your door, when it's raining)leads to chaos. Chaos leads to poetry, even when you don't recognize it. Poetry bathes you in the beauty of this one moment.
Today my poetry turned out to be cupcakes.
