Baking With Baby

Everything has been coming along pretty well at work.  For a long time now I've felt like all I do is eat, sleep and go to work.  I assume that this is a fairly common experience for both pastry chefs and pregnant women, and since I finally told my bosses I am excited to tell you as well (if you didn't already know) that I am now both.  Yes it's true, Dave and I are very happily expecting our first child, who is due on June 9th.  Although if my friend Lisa has any say in it, the baby will be born a day early so that they can share a birthday.  Joint birthdays are special, just like narwhals and unicorns. 

I was very nervous to tell my bosses about my pregnancy, but apparently I didn't really need to worry about it at all as they've been very understanding so far.  When I told Mr. Calm he just said, "Oh, so you'll need what, like 2 days off to have the baby?"  "Yeah, something like that."  Hilarity.  Also, as you may know I've been feeling like I don't really fit in with the rest of my co-workers.  One especially (of course, the only one who speaks a modicum of English) appeared to spend the entire month of December swinging wildly between liking me and hating me to the point that she would only communicate with me through our boss.  However, now that they all know I'm preggers, I'm practically the most popular person there.  I guess it's true, everyone loves somebody who is pregnant.

In other, more culturally interesting work news - have you ever heard of Rosca de reyes?  I went into work on January 6th and as I was doing my morning tasks my co-worker Callie offered me some hot chocolate.  I thought that was fairly nice but I didn't want any at the time so I declined, although later I wished I hadn't.  About half an hour later she came around and offered me a piece of a ring cake covered in fruit and asked me if I knew what Rosca de reyes was.  I definitely did not, and she explained to me that it's a Hispanic holiday (Dave also later explained to me more about the Epiphany and the 12th day of Christmas, etc) and that everyone gets a piece of the cake, which apparently you're supposed to dip in hot chocolate or coffee.  Also, if you find the "baby Jesus" in your piece of cake (choking hazard does NOT equal Brooke safety!), then apparently you're obligated to invite everyone present to a dinner where you serve tamales.  It also means that you've been blessed, but they seem to focus on the tamales.  So guess who wound up finding the baby Jesus?  That's right, their super-pale, Jewish co-worker!  They were all highly amused, and while Callie assured me that I don't actually have to bring anything in on February 2nd (the designated tamale day), I'm totally up for it.  I can't promise it'll be tamales, but I love cultural traditions and want to fully embrace the hilarity of me finding the little figurine in my cake (and thankfully not choking on it).  Another co-worker joked that now I have 2 babies, the baby Jesus and Dave's and my baby; I'm sure they'll make a great team.  I imagine them either becoming a crime fighting duo or running a Jewish detective agency.  What?  It could totally happen.