Who's Got the Baby?

Today is Ash Wednesday. I had to look in Wikipedia to learn what all that means as we have never really celebrated it. When I was a teacher in a school founded by Benedictine nuns, I once ignorantly told a nun on Ash Wednesday that she had a smudge of black ink on her forehead - just trying to be nice and help her out. She sweetly informed me it was Ash Wednesday and that the priest had placed it there during her morning mass. Oops.

But having grown up outside of New Orleans, I was well aware of Fat Tuesday yesterday. And what that meant in our house growing up was a King Cake. I haven't made one in several years so I decided to surprise the kids this morning with one. Anna Blair found the baby in her piece of cake and then did what I used to do to my sister when I was her age. She hid it in her brother's piece when he wasn't looking. Nothing wrong with recycling that little plastic baby. I told her that in my childhood, whoever got the baby had to do the dishes, but I was going to excuse her from that old tradition. Despite the fact that we had no doubloons and beads thrown at us and cigarette-smelling old men asking us for a kiss in exchange for one of his artificial carnations of yellow, purple and green - we enjoyed our King Cake and had a great Mardi Gras.