What I Learned from Eggs
My Daughter asked for eggs for breakfast this morning.
She did it completely right, too. She decided last night that she wanted eggs for breakfast this morning. She asked politely if someone would make her eggs for breakfast. She even specified the preparation method – hard-boiled, please.
Well done, Zilla!
But despite the advance notice, those eggs delayed us a good ten minutes in our morning routine.
You see, instead of jumping on that advance notice and making the eggs last night, I left the task for this morning. Never a good choice. Mornings here do not have a whole lot of margin for error. (My Mother will insert here that they should, because that just makes sense, especially in a house that runs on ADHD, and she’s completely right, of course. But that’s not the point.)
In addition, the Hub and I both stayed up far too late last night working on projects we needed to tackle before the week began. I was disinclined to get up fifteen minutes earlier and while he did get up early (and rather pleasantly), he was already busy shaving his head (takes work to make that bald head beautiful). See where I’m going here? The eggs were going to be a speed bump, at the very least.
In theory, I should have been able to pop into the kitchen to make the eggs while Zilla got dressed. But left to her own devices, she will stall out, get distracted by something, and fail to remember that she’s supposed to be getting dressed. So I enlisted the help of the Fab Hub. Now remember that the Hub is culinarily challenged (his term). While he has learned to make quite a few basic things rather successfully, hard boiled eggs are not one of those on the list. So I tossed him instructions as I continued to herd Kidzilla. So far, so good.
…
Kidzilla had a hard time turning off the brain last night and struggled to fall asleep. So while she was not uncooperative about getting up this morning, she was mildly unwilling and definitely slow to make progress. Because she was a little low on sleep, there was a thing about the droopiness of the tights she was wearing and she got stuck on that for about five minutes. On another morning, we might have compensated by grabbing a mug of milk, a protein bar, and some apple slices, left on time with breakfast to go, and been right on time for school.
But today there were eggs. And Kidzilla is not yet skilled at eggs to go. We needed ten minutes at the table. Ten minutes we did not have. So like any mother concerned with making launch time so the child is not late for school, I prodded Zilla to hurry.
You’d think I would know after six years of living with this child that this method rarely works. OK, it never works. All the little idiosyncrasies of her personality kick in and her speed actually slows until all that remains is a frustrated Mommy barking and a frustrated Kidzilla growling. Oh, and because I was trying to rush the whole process, I skimped on the egg time and decided they could come out of the hot water two minutes early. Wrong. Now the damn eggs wouldn’t peel which slowed us down even more.
By some miracle or time vortex, we did make it to school on time. And when I got home from dropping off Kidzilla, I decided to boil some eggs for another morning this week, just in case Zilla wanted them again. As they were cooking, I realized there was something to be learned from eggs.
Trying to rush things along rarely proves to be effective. Sometimes you have to slow down to get things to move faster. Sometimes you have to take a step back before you move forward. There’s a reason football players choose to drop back and punt. People are going to move along at their own pace, events are going to unfold in due time, and hard boiled eggs really do need ten minutes in the water to come out perfectly.
That said, allow me to share the method I use for making perfect hard-boiled eggs. It works every time…provided that you actually follow the directions and don’t try to rush the process.
Emeril’s Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs (found many years ago via Emeril Lagasse)
What you need:
- eggs
- water
What to do:
- Place eggs in water, then bring to a boil. Boil for two minutes.
- At two minutes, shut heat off, cover, and let sit eleven minutes.
- After eleven minutes, put eggs immediately into iced cold water.
- Peel and eat! If the eggs don’t shell easily, they aren’t cooked right.
Tip: A very long time ago, someone taught me that to keep egg shells from cracking when you hard boil, prick one end of the egg with a pin. To this day, I keep a standard pushpin in my kitchen drawer and always prick the butt end of an egg before hard boiling. It works! Of course, you have to be gentle, but it’s easier to do than you might think. It’s especially helpful at Easter time when you want smooth, uncracked shells to color.
Good things come to those who wait.
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You have hit on something there. We have that exact experience: tge more we ask M to hurry, the slower she goes. Is it quiet rebellion (or civil disobedience?) or part of ADHD?
Here’s a funny thing. I recently discovered that my children don’t think of eggs as breakfast food. My little creatures of habit want “peen” (Leo’s plain) Cheerios for breakfast every morning so when we have eggs it’s for a quick supper.
Well, I suppose the vague answer is that it could be any or all of the above. For us, it’s part of the ADHD and we also have the ODD factor in the mix. Granted, most kids are naturally a bit defiant, but we happen to own this particular co-morbidity with our version of ADHD. So in this case, that oppositional wire fires up and we’re caught in that undertow. It’s a learning process. I have to say I like the civil disobedience spin quite a lot! 😀
I always think of eggs as breakfast for weekends or special occasions, but I honestly don’t know why. Maybe because growing up we usually did cereal or oatmeal. And cereal is what Zilla and her dad usually want in the morning (Cheerios, by the way). I rarely think of eggs for dinner on purpose, but the other night when I asked for dinner suggestions, Zilla instantly voted for “Mommy eggs” which is Eggs Benedict minus the Canadian bacon. I don’t know why I never think of breakfast for dinner on purpose.
Life lessons from eggs. Who knew?
I’ll take ’em where I can get ’em, Scott!
You know – this is both profound and so simple and something that’s SO hard to remember in the moment filled with “hurry up!!” and the heightened blood pressure that comes from feeling like we’re going to be late. It is true that it would actually take less time though, were we to slow down a little bit and let these things run their courses. I also love that Zilla asked for eggs the night before – so awesome! And Tucker adores hard boiled eggs. Great minds 🙂
You hit it right on the head, Kristi – the fact that it’s hard to remember when we are IN the moment. That’s the key to success in these situations. And that is really more about training the Mommies than the kids, isn’t it?
Hard boiled eggs are really just perfect. I love them right when they are still warm from cooking, sliced and drizzled with herbed olive oil, salt, and pepper. Yum! Put that on toast and slice some avocado next to it and you’re good to go.
Glad you figured it out. I learned the lesson of slow down to speed things up long ago. Oh the times I spent standing by, watching a child try to do something himself, while in my head counting the seconds I could have saved if I would have done it myself. But, if I would have done it myself THAT particular day, a tantrum would have ensued and we would be 10 minutes later than if I would have just let the slowpoke do it. It is so hard to slow down to hurry up, but it is a necessary skill. After 16 years, I still feel like I’m going to burst with the pressure of the screaming “HURRY UP” in my head.
And by the way, I eat a hard-boiled egg every single day with my breakfast. My kids eat them regularly, too. They’re just so good, and a great, quick shot of protein in the morning. Of course, they are only quick if you cook them the day before you need them. 🙂
Well I’ll work on keeping the HURRY UP in my head, not on the outside. Honestly, Christine, I can’t even imagine how you get six of them moving – I have enough trouble with my one! 😀
We love hard-boiled eggs. I guess every now and then we kind of forget about them for a while. I’m prepared for tomorrow, though!
Sigh. I could definitely relate to this one. Mornings are NUTS and hurrying/barking orders always seems to backfire but you just can’t help yourself. Glad Zilla got her eggs and to school on time!
I know. I found myself slipping right into it this morning when Zilla got distracted by something in her room instead of getting dressed. Oy! It’s an ongoing learning process – for both of us!
I tend to zoom around, wound up tight as a drum and it is no good for anything. I might feel better, but it puts everyone around me on edge and they all have different reactions to my reaction. (A chain reaction). Thanks for the tip on puncturing the egg before boiling. The white doesn’t leak out? Who knew?
The chain reaction is definitely true, Val – that’s exactly what happens here and I forget how much power I have to stop it.
That was my first question when I learned that trick – what happens to the white? Nope, it doesn’t leak out. Every now and then – and I mean very rarely – I’ll have one crack, but I’ve been puncturing the egg shells for almost 25 years and I think I can count on one hand the times I had a crack. It pops the air bubble inside the shell and helps release the sulfuric gas. It also allows a tiny bit of water to get inside, which makes the egg easier to peel. One of the best kitchen tips I ever learned!
Huh, I’ll have to try that pushpin trick. I’ve seen another one that I could never make work either where you take a little hole out of either end and then blow the egg out.
It’s funny how sometimes the little things teach us the big lessons. It’s so easy to just go, go, go – instead of stopping and taking a step back.
I’ve never tried blowing the egg out, but the pushpin thing for hard boiled eggs definitely works!
I find more and more often that our big lessons come from the little every day things. We just have to remember to keep our eyes open…and then apply those lessons.
So well written – and boy can I relate to the “speed bumps” that come with herding children to “launch time”. (Love that phrase, btw.) I have four to get out the door – the margin for error is minuscule. But you are so right – rushing and pushing never results in satisfying outcomes. Sometimes it’s best to drop back and reassess – or drop that thing you think you have to get done. Thanks for this great reflection.
Hi, Julia, and thanks! It’s launch time for sure – no matter how calm I try to keep things, somehow it always feel like we are just being hurtled out into the world for the day. But the slowing down and not pushing is helping, and it’s something we can use to our advantage in so many things, not just getting everyone out the door!
I’ve never heard of that method of pricking one end of the egg with a pin. I wish I had known about that because i used to make hard boiled eggs a lot. I used to eat one just about every day especially before workouts – they’re such a great source of protein. The shells would often get cracked though so I stopped. Hmm, I might have to go back to that soon.
See, a good reason to return to eggs! It works. And eggs really are like the perfect food. We always keep some hard boiled ready to go.
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