Part 1

It’s not about the cake

As my tagline states, this blog is ‘a place to practice the craft’. I meant the craft of writing, but it could also be the craft of living, engaging, witching, mothering. Launched a handful of weeks after the birth of my son, it has been many things — a creative outlet during the long days and nights of new motherhood, a digital sandbox to hone my writing craft, a place to find a writing community and make what are now old friends, a path to tread tentative steps toward intentional and ‘professional’ writing, and a repository for parenting mementos that I’m already grateful for, seven years on.

Those mementos include a post for each of Ruben’s birthdays. Number one was small on fanfare but big on joy; two a day of firsts with first tram ride and aquarium visit for him, first foray into fondant foolery for me; three was spent on the half pipe and dirt mounds of the skate park, inspired by his prodigious way with wheels; four an epic piñata and a dinosaur theme; and five, marveling at the wonders of the universe and his mamma’s baking skills as he sliced through an astronaut helmet cake to discover a solar system within.

Life on our tiny blue speck has changed in many ways since the last birthday post in 2019. Ruben now reads and writes, I have completed a year of university with a focus on reading and writing, we’ve moved twice (technically thrice for him), I’ve had two changes of roles at work, Ruben has been home schooled and regular schooled, I’ve started a business, his palate has expanded thanks to sushi orders at school on a Wednesday, tantrums are less frequent and easier to recover from (for both of us), he’s made new friends despite knowing most of the kids with whom he started school, I’ve made new friends through my course despite having never met most of them in person, swimming lessons are no longer a chore, I’ve fallen in love with non-fiction (reading and writing), and the biggie — we’ve learnt to navigate a global pandemic and the unpredictable starts and stops to routines and rhythms. We’ve adapted, we’ve grown, we’ve learnt, we’ve slowed down. But, birthdays and their celebration have been a constant.

Over the next two posts, I will share belated musings on Ruben’s sixth and seventh birthdays. The unique circumstances of each celebration tells of the sixes and sevens that we’ve all been thrust into over the past yearandahalf (not a typo, just capturing the vibe). It won’t be just about cake (okay, it will mostly be about cake) but also love, life, and how we’ve pandemic-ed.

What have been constants for you over the past yearandahalf?