We tried to make the long weekend fun for the girls. The pool is not yet ready so we tried to come up with fun activities that did not involve looking at the neighbours cannon-balling into their deep-end, running in slow motion with pool noodles, enjoying popsicles on their deck or ever looking in their direction.
Greg thought of the perfect picnic lunch idea—Egg salad!
We both agreed egg salad had all of the makings to turn this hot mess of a weekend around.
I think when the oven timer on the eggs beeped to signify they were cooked it hit me–I think we’ve tried egg salad with these kids before and it did not end well.
Due to our sometimes enforced rule of no saying, “Oh that’s gross! What do I smell? Did someone fart?” while approaching the table, we saw the following three honest egg salad reactions.
Chloe: What do I smell? Did someone fart?
Hanna: Oh that’s gross!
Ellie silently approached the table, eyes starting to fill with tears. She looked at the bread, tried to smile in my direction, biting her upper lip and choking back tears asked, “What’s for lunch?” Her eyes were so full of liquid, if she had blinked, she would have soaked her sandwich but she stayed strong.
Greg and I reminisced about the egg salad sandwiches of yore. The kind you ate in quarters on white bread with real butter in the basement of a church after a neighbourhood garage sale in the name of raising money for the egg deprived.
The kids looked at their egg sandwiches on whole grain bread with no mayonnaise, no butter, no distinguishable flavour, Ellie whispered to Hanna while her nose was plugged, “I think it’s a scrambled egg sandwich” and they both gagged.
I thought it might take their minds off the eggs and the large empty chlorine-less hole in our backyard if after painting on some canvas sheets that had been in the craft cupboard since Christmas, we baked a rhubarb cake and enjoyed it with some neighbours—not the ones who were refreshed from hours of plunging in and out of their backyard oasis, the other ones dried and dusted like us.
I realized using phrases like, “okay, now toss the flour” and “throw the sugar in the bowl” was not the kind of verbiage you want to mess around with and consequently we looked more dried and dusted than before.
The kids anxiously awaited our masterpiece and when the oven beeped, knelt facing the glass panel to review our delicious group project.
Hanna: What do I smell?
Chloe: Oh that’s gross!
Ellie: Do we have any more of those scrambled egg sandwiches?
