Eggs for Breakfast

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.                                                   - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

On any given day, at any given time, I either have more than enough little helpers or absolutely no helpers at all depending on what I'm doing or what I've asked them to do.  Cooking tends to draw my children to the kitchen.  They pull up their chairs to the bar and ask if they can help and usually I'm in such a hurry or feeling so particular I can't see how their help will really help.  Sadly, I'll dismiss them or have them watch only.  (Then I wonder why it is that when I want their help they're nowhere to be found. . . )

I am making cinnamon toast and scrambled eggs this morning and my 2-year old Ally excitedly asks if she can help.  But Boy has to get off to school and I'm in a bit of a pinch for time, and I just don't see how she can help.  She pushes her chair up to the bar and skibbles herself up to stand on it.  "Can I pour the sugar, please?"  I let her sugar one piece of bread and before I know it the bread is buried in a mound of white and the nearly full sugar shaker is nearly empty.  I rescue the bread and finish the rest myself.  "Can I do that?" she asks as I sprinkle on the cinnamon.  "Already done," I announce as I quickly finish the last one.  "Can I help?" she repeats.  "I do need some eggs," I sigh.  "I'll get them!" she chimes as she hurries to the fridge, grabs the new carton, and carefully carries my 18 eggs to the stove.  "Can I crack them?"  And this is where I would normally say "no" and quickly crack 12 eggs, relagating her to stirring with an added caution to please be careful and not spill.  But today I paused. I paused long enough to let go of my control and allow my little Ally to really feel like she was helping.  I quickly gave her a small bowl and an egg and told her she could crack the egg for me and I went back to cracking eggs into a larger container.  I sensed her watching me tap my egg on the counter and crack the egg into the bowl, then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her try to duplicate what I had done.  And she did just fine!  A bit of cracked yolk and quite the mess comparitively, but, only a small shell landed in her bowl and she was oh, so pleased with herself!  "I did it," she said tentatively, looking at her hands and the crumbled shells she held with the yellow yolk dripping.  "Oh, Ally!  Look at you!  You did GREAT!!" I praised as I threw away the shell, scooped out the broken piece, added her egg to my container and handed her another egg.  Well, that made her morning.  She cracked two more eggs by herself before I finished mine, excitedly exclaimed "I did it again!" each time, and happily watched as I added each of hers to my bowl.

My little people are learning about and experiencing life everyday.  That's one of our purposes here on earth - to learn its physics, its laws of being - to experience it.  I know that my little girl would have eventually had the chance to crack eggs later on but the fact that I let her do it today, and I didn't breathe over her shoulder or caution her at every turn, to have her be able to do it and do it well, hopefully empowered her today.

What I get out of it is 3 cracked eggs, a happy child, and a touch of joy.