At this moment in time I think it’s quite possible that Jane is too honest for her own good.

I was making a chocolate cake for a friend’s birthday when Jane piped up, ” I help you?” Fellow chocoholic that I am, I knew that “help” did not in this instance mean that she wanted to actually help. But rather, “Hey mom I’d like to sit on that stool and eat all the chocolate that you’ll let me.” Sympathetic to her plea, I set her up on a stool and gave her a frosting beater to lick.  But soon she was eyeing what I was doing.

I’m not going to lie, what I was doing was both interesting and delicious. I was in the final stages of assembling the Chocolate Quake Cake from Sprinkle Bakes. After baking the cake and making the frosting, you’ll have used three(!) full cups of cocoa powder. In making the chocolatey wonder, first you stack and frost two layers like any normal cake but then a third layer is cut up into random chunks and stuck it all over the entire thing. Sounds crazy, tastes awesome. I highly recommend it!

But, back to the kitchen. Jane’s stool is at the counter, just out of reach of the stove where I am working. (Not a coincidence.) Jane turns her chocolate covered face and sees the giant pile of cake chunks I’ve made, drops her frosting beater and asks if I’ll scoot her stool closer. Now I know all she wants is to get within arms reach of the pile of cake chunks which I’ve already started sticking on the cake as fast as I can.  But I ask anyway. “Jane are you going to snitch my cake if I scoot you closer?”  And she, honest girl that she is, says “YEAH!” and I explain (still frantically sticking on pieces) that this cake is for our friend and we can’t eat it yet because we are going to give it to her for her birthday.  But if she can just lick her frosting beater and hold on, perhaps I’ll have a few leftovers at the end.

Jane is two. This schpeal of mine results in nothing but the full on hysterical cry of the deprived child – for at least five seconds – before she sniffs, sobers and asks politely if I’ll move her stool closer. “If I move your stool closer what will you do?” “EAT CAKE!”  Again, we go through it, nope, can’t eat this cake, short hysterical crying, sobering, sniffles, polite asking.  “Sure, I’ll move your stool but you can’t touch the cake.” “I NEED CAKE!” And while I completely understand the sentiment, I repeated that we couldn’t eat this cake – yet. Again with the crying. Again the polite asking. Again the refusal. And again, and again.

Let me tell you, I have made this cake before and I don’t remember it taking near so long to stick all those little chunks on top last time.

Eventually, I covered the cake, we called in the sisters, had a mini chocolate cake feast with the leftovers and life was good.

You know, I appreciate her honesty, I love that she asks politely even in the middle of a tantrum and I hope she keeps those wonderful qualities for life. But I just gotta think it would have been easier on us both had she just snitched a piece of cake without saying anything.