I Am Egg-cellent

I am a mom and a wife. I am a Catholic and a cross fitter (feels weird to claim that last one). I don’t do any of these things perfectly. I usually forget about all school picture or dress-up days; if you held a gun to my head, I still don’t know all the words to all the prayers of the rosary; most recently during the CrossFit open I flew off the bar while doing pull-ups (don’t worry, my bruised ego has healed nicely.)

One day, while we lived in Florida and had only 2 kids, I was bustling around the kitchen meal prepping and getting snacks in order. I put a few eggs on the gas stove to hard boil and returned to tending to the kids. Unfortunately, my brain was working a few steps ahead of itself that day and I loaded the kids into the car and headed to the store. Then I stopped by a friend’s house. She offered me coffee and an impromptu playdate, and, well, how could I turn that down? So we stayed and sipped and played and then I loaded my hungry kiddos back into the car and headed home. Two and a half hours later. I carried the baby in and followed Gabbi through the door into a hazy and smelly house. “Whoa!” She yelled, “Why does it look like this in our house mommy?!” And like an amnesiac, all of it came flooding back to me. I left the eggs on the stove. The gas stove. Two and a half hours ago! By the time I made it to the kitchen, our house smelled like a sulfur spring. The smoking pot was still on the stove, but there was NOTHING left inside. The bottom of it was completely brown. The eggs were no longer in the pot, they had all EXPLODED. There were eggs on my beautiful, vaulted ceilings. There were eggs underneath all of my cabinets. My floor was a minefield of eggshells and whites, almost indistinguishable from one another. I tossed my baby into the high chair and threw cheerios at him. I realized that Gabbi was still standing in the doorway asking a string of questions, “Are the firemen coming? Will daddy be mad? Why did you do this? Why are there eggs on my little table? Will our house always smell like this?” I begged Gabbi to find something to do and finally resorted to sticking her in the far corner of the house, one saved from the egg-pocalypse, and turned on the TV. I spent the next couple hours scrubbing egg from the vent beneath our microwave, the surface of our cherry cabinets, and our tile floors. I ran the pot under cold water for a solid 20 minutes and then decided it was beyond salvaging and tossed it in the trash. I reached and scraped at the ceiling to try and clear any evidence of this giant faux pas, but alas, the stench (and my daughter who was already working on her story telling skills in the corner) were going to give me up. Doesn't every wife want to call their husband at work to let him know you *almost* burned the house down?! I swallowed my pride and dialed B at work. “Hi babe,” I started, “just so you know, everything is fine now, but …”