Inspired from the hospitalization poll I am sharing a memory I wrote on Facebook explaining my possible cake PTSD. I had included a black and white picture of me having a mini tantrum beside a birthday cake on a little table in our yard.
We are all dressed up in 1960s finery and all that is on the table is the cake.
Since the picture appears to be during the summer it must have been my little brother’s second birthday. He is sitting on my father’s lap and I appear to have jumped up from my mother’s lap in a flouncy rage. I am six and a half years old and wearing a little dress.
As I am not yet fluent posting pictures I implore you to use your imagination.
My memory:
There’s a well known bit of wisdom that every picture tells a story.
Here I present a candid picture of my family “telling” quite a vivid
one.
The parents are visibly exasperated.
I am apparently in the middle of a Stage 4 tantrum.
Who thought this was a great opportunity for a picture?
It’s probably just a simple display of sibling rivalry. I think this was my brother’s second birthday and I was likely jealous of all the attention he was getting. Poor child is the picture of 2 year old weariness just waiting out the storm.
Here’s your cake and your twisted sister.
Happy Birthday indeed.
But I think it could possibly be Cake PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Back then cakes were the centerpiece of the celebration. Always homemade and deeply round like a frosted mini ottoman.
When I was six I was hospitalized for a week in a local pediatric ward and the hospital stay happened to include my birthday.
Someone brought me a lovely Lamb Cake complete with flecks of coconut on the frosting. I was also gifted 2 porcelain nun figurines about 4 inches tall - one in a white habit and one in a black habit.
Sister Salt and Sister Pepper.
Kind of like a Catholic upgrade from the little Scotty dog magnets that were popular at the time.
The nurses placed this captivating Lamb Cake on the nightstand next to my bed. The nightstand was directly below a window into the next room.
Hospital nightstands have wheels.
There was a little boy in the next room who kept looking through the window and salivating for my Lamb Cake. I put up with this for awhile but the random intrusion of his peering through the glass was overwhelming.
There were curtains at the top of the little hospital window.
I figured I could heave myself onto the nightstand to take care of this.
I stepped onto the nightstand and tried to remain steady as I reached for the curtains.
Remember I said hospital nightstands have wheels?
Suddenly the nightstand took off like a huge wobbly roller skate.
My foot ended up in the Lamb cake at some point and my toes were coated in coconut frosting.
The nun figurines clattered to the floor and lost some of their substance.
I landed on the floor and remained huddled in a bloodbath of cake and porcelain while the tears flowed.
I was angry, embarrassed and heartbroken to have lost my beloved Lamb Cake in such a self made disaster.
The nurses were somehow alerted to the chaos in my room either by Window Boy or the general sounds of mayhem unfolding down the hall.
Eventually another cake was brought in and the nun figurines carefully glued back together except for a few missing pieces.
This picture could very well be just an arbitrary tantrum.
But I think it was all about the Cake.