We are looking up good recipes for deviled eggs. We are baking more often. We are eating eggs for breakfast—boiled or scrambled or “pokey” (our daughter’s name for over-easy)—and packing some in her lunch. We are in the beginning of the egg days.
For over a month, just Carmel was laying, which was odd because she wasn’t one of the oldest, though to be fair, we got all the eight (ack!) chickens within a two month period in the late spring/early summer. We kept wondering when another would lay. This weekend—ta da!—an early morning Carmel egg (medium brown, about the color of perfectly toasted rye bread) followed a few hours later by ungodly squawking and then Buttercup sitting in the nesting box, resting on a lighter brown egg, closer to the color of organic store-bought eggs. Yesterday, Carmel’s early morning was followed by a much more comfortable-sounding time in the nesting box by Buttercup and then a whole lot of crazy noise that we noticed was coming from Chips, the biggest and oldest of our crew, and when we went back out, there were two light brown eggs right next to each other. Three—count them three—in one day. The first few eggs seem to come with a lot of squawking, and the chickens get this look on their faces like, “what the hell is happening?” It kind of looks like they have to take a big, uncomfortable poo. So now we have eggs starting to pile up. Will we sell our eggs? We want to swap our eggs. Dare I tell anyone that I’m already feeling a little tired of eggs? Certainly they’ll be a great gift to those not inundated.
When I was pregnant, I could not bear the sight of eggs—scrambled, pokey, boiled, it didn’t matter. Yuck. Because I had gestational diabetes, I had to eat a certain percentage of protein to a carbs, with a very strict every-few-hours dietary plan. Eggs and toast in the morning would’ve been perfect, but I’d do cottage cheese on a rice cake to avoid that egg. Lately I’ve been feeling that way about eggs again. And no, I’m not pregnant. I’ve finally come to a place at 40 after a decade of no birth control and only two pregnancies—one successful—where I don’t take every slight feeling of tender breast, every food craving or food aversion, every minor morning nausea, as a hint that I am pregnant. I had a strange few days of vertigo last month, something inner ear, I suppose, and when I told people I felt dizzy and off, almost all of them said, “Oooh, you might be pregnant.” I understand that’s the go-to reference. God knows I’ve done the same to friends over the years. But the thing is, I’m not.
Over the past few years my feelings about my extremely limited fertility have downgraded from heartbreak and desperation to a much more bearable low-grade sadness and general acceptance. I am able to be rational about the whole thing, be honest with myself about how great our tight little team is and how disruptive and exhausting a newborn would be with me at forty and my husband at fifty-two. I have no regrets about how our family looks. The feelings I have about it now are less about babies per se, and much more in the family of fear-of-mortality. I find myself watching friends whip out their boobs and think, “wow, I’m never going to do that again.” I should clarify, “whip out the boob ... to breastfeed.” Lest you think I’ll never take out my breasts again or that I’m surrounded by friends who pell mell whip out theirs. I’ve recently celebrated as two of my closest friends’ babies turn one and my very dear friend’s toddler turns two. At my daughter’s school I stand outside chatting with other moms who have not only their kinder/first/second grader, but also a baby on the hip or a toddler running wild. One of my co-moms has five, count em, five children. The oldest is my daughter’s age.
