The Circle of Life

"What are you doing?" I heard her little voice and immediately jumped.

"Noff-fing" I mumbled, trying to keep my lips closed.

"What. Is in. Your mouff?" she asked. I felt like *I* was the four year old and she was the parent.

"What?" I spewed cake crumbs from my lips. I smiled like a cat caught with a mouse in its mouth. "It's just the top of the cake," I finally confessed.

"What did you do to my cake?!?!" she asked with her eyes wide.

"I had to make the top flat. So I could stack them, see?" I showed her how I'd shaved the rough top off the round cake so I could make a (sort-of) level stack. She was ok with that, but I think she was thinking about how I told her she ABSOLUTELY! COULD! NOT! HAVE! ANY! CAKE! just a few minutes earlier.

"And why are you eating it?" she asked.

Hmmmm....

"You're supposed to. It's part of life. It's good luck," I said, "to eat the top of the cake before you decorate it."
"Dennn, shouldn't *I* have some?" she asked.

I surrendered and split the golden warm goodness with the birffday girl.

Cows eat their placentas, I eat my kid's birthday cake. It's part of the circle of life ;)