The chaos that ensued after burning hard boiled eggs certainly taught me a whole lot about how I can adjust my reactions to mistakes in the future.
Courtesy of Sarah Shrader
I burned hard boiled eggs this week. I am talking full blown smoke alarms blaring and eggs popping out of the pot – completely breaking and exploding out of their shell – and all over my kitchen.
Frantically, I shoved the eggs off the hot burner and grabbed a kitchen towel to go fan the smoke alarm – after all, almost every time I fry bacon the alarm goes off and a quick wave of a towel and an open window usually does the trick. However, this time, there was way too much smoke in the house to get it to stop. And the constant beeping just seemed to cause panic to come over me.
But usually I work good under pressure – or so I tell myself. So, I jumped into fight mode – quickly assessing that nothing was actually on fire, I knew that I had to stop the deafening beeping. Rushing around, I opened all the doors and window and put box fans in to get the smoke out. Then I went back to the smoke alarm swinging the towel around to get the noise to stop.
When the overwhelming beeping finally stopped, I felt like I could actually calm down. I was fine – no one was hurt. The house was fine – no fire, no damage – just a kitchen mess of exploded eggs – and potentially a trashed pot. No big deal.
It was a mistake, an accident. In the middle of the workday, while on a quick potty break, I thought it would be a great idea to get some eggs boiled for chef salad that night. And, it would have been a great idea to get ahead and not have to worry about it later – had I remembered that I put the eggs on the stove.
Instead, I went back to my office (in the garage) and dove into work. If it wasn’t for the lawn company showing up next door and my dog losing her mind (so I had to put her inside), I am not sure when I would have walked back into the house. I completely forgot about them.
But the chaos that ensued once I realized the mistake – the roaring smoke alarm screaming at me — did not take away the mistake. It just caused me to go into panic mode. Once the shrieking smoke alarm stopped, I cleaned up the mess, lit a few candles and smiled as my big kids got off the bus and asked what happened. We joked about it – and I made them keep an eye on round 2 of the eggs while I finished working.
But I took out of the experience so much – about me, mistakes and being notified of my mistakes. Because, I sure do make mistakes. A lot. I am always learning and growing – just like my kids.
It was interesting to me how much more I could focus – correct and clean up – my mistake when I didn’t have the smoke alarm howling at me – reminding me over and over again that I messed up.
Look, I don’t yell much at my kids – at least I try not to – and usually if and when I do it is because I had asked them 10 times to do something, and they still hadn’t done it. It’s like I get to a point where the smoke of the situation in me is too much, and I release into a bellowing alarm.
If it comes to that, then my kids do get moving – much like I did opening the doors and windows. But all my hollering is doing is inducing panic in them. I become a cause of panic and fright in my children – something I do not want to be the cause of. I want to be a safe place and provide peace – not a raging alarm elevating their heart rate and stirring chaos in them.
I do realize that sometimes an alarm is necessary – a smoke alarm helps warn so that we can get out in a fire – for safety reasons. And sometimes, as a parent, I need to raise my voice to convey just how important a lesson or situation is – for their safety.
But there have definitely been some other times when it just wasn’t necessary – where calm words and reminders should and could have been used.
I am not perfect. I am real. I make mistakes – both as a person and in parenting. But I can tell you this – I truly attempt to take every lesson and apply it as I go. And for me, the chaos that ensued after burning hard boiled eggs certainly taught me a whole lot about how I can adjust my reactions to mistakes in the future. And, no, I am not just talking about eggs.
Sarah (Pitson) Shrader was born and raised in Lima. She is a Lima Central Catholic and Tiffin University graduate. Sarah is a full-time working mama who enjoys writing about her somewhat crazy, always adventurous life as a mom and bonus mom. She lives in Bath Township with her husband, Lee Parsons, and their seven kids.
