Dear Kid,

If you drop an egg, you wouldn’t throw the other 11 on the floor, would you?

Don’t let one slip up ruin your entire day.

And you wouldn’t let it prevent you from making an omelet.

Of course not.

You’d clean up the floor, add eggs to the grocery list, and make a great breakfast.

All too often however, I hear people say things like “I forgot to do “x”–the whole day is ruined.” Or “I ate a donut at breakfast, there’s no point in eating healthy the rest of the day.” Or “I didn’t make that phone call yesterday, so there’s no point in ….”

Wrong answer.

There are things in life that can’t be fixed, but not many. Making sure you have the right point of view is critical to moving on.

It’s pretty hard to put an egg back together or to use it to cook with after it’s landed with a splat on the floor (especially if the puppy gets there quickly). So if the goal is to hold that one, perfect egg, you’re in trouble.

But if the goal is to make breakfast, it’s pretty easy to come up with a zillion alternatives.

Find a way to reframe the problem so you really get what you want. I wise child of mine recently said, “You have to deal with the hand you’re dealt.” (Remind me to talk about gambling.)

Deal with the hand you’re dealt, make sure you know what you really want and don’t get caught up in the minutia, and thank you for cleaning up the mess on the floor.

Love, Mom

Thanks to SparkPeople for the inspiration!

Dear Kid,

Well, we’ve had quite an animal-filled week. Wombats, dead fuzzy duck and dead TV, and Rodney the Bird. (If you think a dead TV isn’t an animal, you probably haven’t been paying attention.)

Also, I’m pretty sure our house is alive.

Last weekend I spent a LOT of time cleaning. I don’t mean my standard “It’s been 3 whole minutes, it’s as clean as it’s ever gonna get” lots of time. I mean serious hours. Measured by the clock. I removed pounds of ick from our house. I put things away (crazy, right?).

Today, you would never know someone even thought about getting the house in order.

I’m pretty sure it’s the house’s fault. No one who lives here would even consider leaving clutter around.

And the ants have invaded again. You remember them. They are the little bitty black spots with too many legs that like to invade the sink (full of unclean pots and dishes) looking for a bit of free lunch. Heebie and Jeebie.

Guess what is going to be on the pismire menu for dinner?

If you guessed ant traps, give yourself a gold star.

Is it weird that my grocery list is chicken, tomatoes, eggs, ant traps?

Have a great day and enjoy studying for exams.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I have a new favorite dish and its name is Shakshukah.

This is how you make Shakshukah.

Since it’s a tomato based dish, the first thing to do is go outside and see if there are any ripe tomatoes. It turns out there are several that are almost ready but prefer to remain on the vine for a while so you add to your plans a stop at the farmer’s market to get tomatoes.

Once you have tomatoes and have decided that the rest of the ingredients are as assembled as they are ever going to be, you begin.

Boil a pot of water that’s big enough to hold all the tomatoes. Get distracted, forget about the pot, and eventually realize that half the water has boiled off. Sigh. Once you have an actual pot of boiling water, put the tomatoes in and turn off the heat. After some number of minutes (“I think maybe a few more minutes would be good” says Tal), scoop the tomatoes out. Try not to burn yourself. The skins will peel right off. They are even easier to peel when someone else (Tal) peels them.

Chop a couple of cloves of garlic. Better yet, have someone else (Tal) chop several cloves of garlic while you see about cleaning up some of the dishes that have been left in the sink.

Heat some oil in a large pan. Watch Tal add the garlic and stir. After a few minutes, watch her add the tomatoes and mash them up. Add about “that much” from a can of diced tomatoes. Add 2 heaping tablespoons of tomato paste. Watch Tal stir.

Season the mixture with some of the spices that Tal brought. (We added two tablespoons of spice and some salt and pepper. After the whole thing cooked for about 15 minutes we tasted and added more spice. Then we congratulated ourselves on being smart enough to taste before moving on.)

Get out the eggs. Consult about how many eggs are necessary. The recipe said 8 eggs, Tal said 5, and the pan said 6. We went with the pan’s idea. Break each egg into a bowl and gently slide the egg on top of the well-stirred tomato mixture. Cover the pan partway and let the eggs cook about 5 minutes. Check the eggs and decide they definitely need more time than that. Give them another 5 minutes or so and decide they’re done.

Serve with bread. You put the Shakshukah on your plate and then pile it on a piece of bread and YUM!

If you are a very good child, I shall make it for you sometime.

Love, Mom