Just finished a piece of birthday cake that Mark baked today for Mala, our babysitter. White cake with caramel swirl filling and white chocolate buttercream. I feel a bit overdosed on sugar these days, but I do like me some cake. Mia, who usually licks off the frosting only and doesn’t touch the cake part, ate every little crumb, while Claudine refused her piece altogether (whose child is this??). People have been asking me if I’ve gained any weight since we started the business. Mark and I are fairly thin people with naturally high metabolism, so weight gain hasn’t ever been an issue, but after I tell people that I live with a pastry chef, the natural question that always follows is “and you’re not fat?”. The thing is, we don’t really eat a lot of sugar. And when you’re around it all the time, you crave it less. So weight gain, no, but the next visit to the dentist is something different all together. I am dreading it. Since we have to test taste each batch of sweets, we’ve resorted to brushing our teeth multiple times a day and have even gone so far as just tasting the sweets and spitting them out. Yeah, I know, sounds crazy.

Our kids don’t eat much sugar either. I feel like the sugar nazi most of the time because they never drink juice unless they’re at a party (Claudine has yet to have a sip, actually), and cookies and treats are given only a few times per week, if that. You’d think that having all these cookies around would make them crazy, but I think they’re used to it by now ’cause we’ll have whole baking sheets of cookies and brownies out and they pretty much ignore it. It’s like part of the landscape now and blends in with everything else.

I was hoping the cake would give me a sugar rush but I am very tired. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me still for a deadline tomorrow, but I think I’m finally crashing from all those days of little sleep. Had a good day today. Art directed a photoshoot for a project (love watching professional photographers work - I mean, I like taking photos, but I’ve got nothing on them), and then came home and packed some cookies for the post office. Our gift boxes are selling and we’ve got a lot of work ahead for the weekend so I’m trying to get my freelance work done now. But of course I am still here…