“She’s been working on it for about twenty minutes,” my husband says as I walk in the front door. I look around him to see my six year old daughter at the kitchen table, intently focused on something.

“Working on what?” I ask.

“Dessert,” he answers.

“Dessert? She’s making dessert? What kind of dessert?”

“I don’t know,” he answers. “I’ve been told it’s a surprise.”

I try not to cringe as I see the disaster that is Lucy’s work area. There are containers, dishes and crumbs everywhere. She is oblivious to it all, as most six year olds are, as she intently works on her masterpiece.

“Look Mom! I’m making dessert.”

“Wow,” I say. “Looks impressive. What is it?”

“It’s bananas, cream cheese, bread and two kinds of crackers, all mushed together.”

I try to keep a smile on my face as I repeat the ingredients in my head. “Yummmmm… where did you get the cream cheese?”

“In the fridge, the container with the green writing.”

The container with the green writing… dill cream cheese. Dill cream cheese, bananas, bread and two kinds of crackers…

She looks up at me. “It’s ready. Want some?”

Do I want some? Do I want some banana, dill cream cheese, cracker and bread dessert? With every fibre of my being, I want to give her a resounding ‘no.’

But then I look at her face. She is so proud of herself and the dessert she has created all on her own.

So I take a deep breath and I say “I would love to try some.”

I sit down at the table and she hands me a bowl. I look at her, smile and dig in.

Yes, I ate the dessert. Of course I ate it. I ate it because that’s what moms do: we eat banana, dill pickle, bread, cracker desserts that our kids make for us.

And we smile while we do it.

(And after a bite or two, we throw the rest in the garbage when no one is looking. Because moms also do that.)