I asked my grandchildren (ages 5 and 7) to “help” me make a birthday cake for my sister. Since my sister is obsessed with losing weight, I bought all the ingredients at the health food store and convinced her that since everything was organic there would be no calories. 

Our dinner was a bit chaotic as they always are when the kids are with me. Since I have no culinary skills all meals at our house are confusing. For this one, the children had noodles, a fried egg, and yogurt. My husband and my sister shared a small pizza (they didn’t want an egg with it) and I had an egg with sautéed greens. The children were unable to finish their dinner. I said, sadly, that I was sorry because that meant there was no room in their tummies to eat our cake. 

They patiently explained to me that the reason they felt full was because they were saving room for cake. Now that I understood that I served generous pieces of cake to everybody but the cake pan was still half full.

I insisted that my sister take the cake home, reminding her again that it had no calories. Not convinced, she said that was a lot of cake for her to eat by herself. 

Then, looking for a way to solve this problem, my 7-year-old grandchild asked my sister if she had a husband. Widowed for twenty years, she explained that she had a husband once but doesn’t have one now. 

“Well,” this grandchild replied looking at the cake, “it would go a lot faster if you had one.”