Gee, I’m Hungry.
I cracked an egg into a bowl for Dylan’s breakfast.
Eggs have choline in them. Choline is important for brain development and (I read somewhere) can help ADHD kids to focus better in school. We stumbled upon this news after discovering that Dylan did better during the holiday season, when he was drinking eggnog instead of milk with breakfast.
So he eats an egg at least three times a week when school is in session. Dylan likes scrambled eggs.
But the egg I cracked into the bowl was perfect. The yolk wasn’t even wobbly, let alone broken. It looked like a commercial for eggs.
I thought, Gee, I’m hungry. I’d like to have an egg over-easy with toast.
That thought, however, was quickly followed with a look at the clock. Dylan would be downstairs for breakfast in only 4 minutes. I wanted him to have a healthy, piping hot breakfast.
So I broke the yolk, scrambled the egg, added cheese and – voila! – made breakfast for Dylan. Then I cracked another egg, so that I could have my over-easy egg with toast.
But I broke the second yolk. So I scrambled it up, added some cheese, and stuffed it into the refrigerator for Dylan’s breakfast tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Dylan’s first egg was getting cold. He still wasn’t downstairs for breakfast.
I cracked another egg for myself. The yolk broke. I am not a cook. I am not an expert egg-breaker. But when the yolk broke this time, I almost cried. I threw it down the sink (organic and expensive though it was) and gave up on breakfast.
Meanwhile, Dylan still wasn’t at the table. He showed up almost 15 minutes late – and ate his cold, once perfect egg without a thought to me, or my morning.
So on the drive to school, I told him the whole story. Broke the egg, blah blah blah, scrambled, blah blah, hungry, blah blah blah.
Then, since he didn’t respond to that, I started to lecture Dylan about how late he was to the table, about how I could have eaten breakfast before he ever got down there and still scrambled an egg for him that still would have been cold because he was so late.
When he didn’t respond to that, I yelled at him for not wearing a coat when it’s 30 degrees outside.
And the whole time I was doling out my lectures and egg stories, I was complaining about the horrific traffic, the way people were driving (in the snow) and how late he was going to be for school because he didn’t get downstairs on time.
Then I screamed, THANKS MOM! at him, hoping he would finally realize what I was looking for. Though at that point, I’m not sure even I knew what I wanted.
He hadn’t said much of anything all day but he finally mumbled, “Thanks, Mom.”
“Just ONCE!” I yelled. “Just ONCE it would be nice if I didn’t have to ASK for a thank you! What happened to that sweet kid? Where did he go? I thought he was still in there! Why do I have to ask for a simple thank you?!”
We pulled into the school parking lot.
“I’ll pick you up after school,” I said. “No problem.”
“Thanks, bye,” he said. And raced into the school.
I wonder why he was in such a hurry?