The Coconut Cake and Febreeze: Spring Renewal

Last week, I made this coconut cake using a recipe in The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs. It's a pretty easy recipe, using a white cake mix, sour cream mixed with sugar and coconut, and then topped with Cool-Whip mixed with more coconut and grated coconut on top. Easy, that is, if you purchase already dried and flaked coconut. Not quite as easy if you start from scratch with the coconut.

But since we received a coconut in our Bountiful Basket, I thought that making this cake would be a good way to put some of that coconut to use.  My boys were super excited to crack it open. First step, drill holes (it's a guy thing) and drain the water.

\

Next, wrap the coconut in a towel and prepare to crack it open. Super excited little boys at this point, if they weren't already. (Even our dog was licking her tongue in anticipation in the background).

Study coconut. Interesting....

Now walk away and leave Mom to do all the rest...the hard part, like peeling and then grating (although my husband did help with one section).

So since I had all this coconut on my hands, I decided to grate some and make that cake. Grating the amount needed for the cake was no small matter. It took awhile and worked my triceps like I haven't done in quite some time. 

We each enjoyed a piece of the finished cake. A few days later, we enjoyed another piece. Then, while it was sitting on the counter, looking pretty and beckoning me to come grab a bite, I snitched a little section.

"Yuck," I thought. "This tastes strangely like the Febreeze the boys have been spraying way too much of lately." 

I did some investigating. Sure enough, the cake did smell distinctly like Febreeze: Spring Renewal.  
 
So I did some asking around. One son admitted to spraying Febreeze on the cake. "Why?" I asked.
 "I wanted to make it smell good," he responded.
 
So glad I at least got that second piece of cake before I had to throw the rest of it away.  Who knew you had to add "Don't spray Febreeze on the food" to the list of manners you're trying to teach your kids?

But what I want to add on here is--
The very next question my son asked was, "Are you mad at me?"
This was an instant heart check to me, because yes, in fact, I was kind of mad. I realized, then, though, that how I responded to him would make all the difference. I can make another cake. It wasn't that hard, after all. Besides, all that coconut grating is good for my upper arms. What I can't replace is my son's heart.
As one of our friends says, "Do no harm."
This Valentine's Day, may we remember to always hold our children's hearts carefully--even as we correct--and fill their hearts with the security of our love, even if they spray Febreeze on our food.