Sharing The Gift

Sharing The Gift

Another summer adventure with my nephew Michael. Soon I'll be able to write a book if he continues.

A few weeks ago Dominic, Michael, Katherine, my nephews and niece, came with their auntie Carolyn and uncle Garry for a little bar-B-Que and a quick dip in the pool at my condo. Even though it stormed, they managed to enjoy a dip in the pool and played with their WII game they had brought to fill in "blank" time. I played a little WII too, got knocked out in boxing match by Dominic - he's a young man so I had to let him save face by allowing him to win. The games were exciting and everyone was having fun, however, I constantly heard the children telling Michael to stop messing around. You see, Michael tends to be a little talkative (Katherine will tell you smart ways to keep him quiet) and learns much of what he knows by wanting to "touch" things. In order to give the other children a break, I took Michael into my "Auntie Jeannie's Time-out room"...Yeh! The other room.

When I took him in my work-room, he got a little nervous because I believe he thought "he was in real trouble". We had a little chat as to why I brought him in the room and as I figured he was bracing for "it". Much to his surprise, I picked up some cake decorating books I had and started to show him pictures of beautifully decorated cakes. He was in awe! Suddenly Mikey said,

"Auntie Jeannie, I want to decorate a cake like this!"

He was pointing to a cake in a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. I smiled and responded by letting him know: "Mikey, lets start with decorating cookies first." He agreed but still wanted to decorate cakes he was looking at from the magazines; Colette Peters books; and the American Cake Decorating magazines. I showed him a few dummy cakes I had, the piping bags and tips, and my personal sketch book of cakes designs I was working on. He was elated and that was when he share with me a great idea of how to share.

Over the summer at camp Michael said he saw a boy who was only 13 years old and he knew how to decorate cakes. He said the boy had the "putty thing" (I believe was fondant), which he used to cover the cakes and make beautiful things. For a moment I thought he was pulling my legs, but I was sure this 9 year old did not know that much about decorating cakes to come up with this story. I asked him how this boy knew how to do the things he was telling me about? Mikey said,

"The boy's mother taught him...she pass it down to him."

Wow! I though. Am I prepared to hear what he will say next? Nope! Sure enough he asked me, "So auntie Jeannie will you pass this down to me just like what that boy's mom did?" Then he explained to me more what "passing down means" because it seems like I did not understand. You see I was blank in my face because I could not believe he was asking that of me...to share the gift, my God-given-gift.

So walk good and I soon come again...Jeannie (otherwise, see you later).