Cracking up over broken eggs
History attributes the famous milk idiom to a Mr. James Howell, who, in 1659, included the phrase “No weeping for shed milk” in his book “Paramoigraphy (Proverbs).”
But I think it was probably a mother whose toddler knocked over a cup and sent a waterfall of white cascading onto the floor who, in a moment of calm, first said, “No use crying over spilled milk” before tossing a rag onto the floor and cleaning up the mess. I imagine she hugged her little boy, whose tears pooled near the milk puddle, and told him she’d rather he make a mess of milk than of himself.
Mr. Howell overheard the story in line at the butcher’s from the tired mother’s husband, and included his own version of that woman’s wisdom in his publication (probably).
At any rate, every mother has her own spilled milk story, and this is mine:
It was a marvelously slow morning that unfolded the way a colorful scarf twists and turns and dances to the floor, a morning that can be neither planned nor replicated. My son (2), my daughter (9 months), and I had slept in. By the time we made our way downstairs, sunlight drenched the first floor. I opened the windows, fixed the baby bouncer in the doorway between kitchen and back porch, and fried eggs while my kids giggled together in the warm mid-morning breeze. Coffee brewed, toast popped up, perfectly browned, and we three enjoyed a hearty breakfast. I didn’t bother cleaning up. We simply finished breakfast, slid into our shoes, and whiled away the hours outdoors. When we returned home, thirsty and spent, the three of us cozied up on the living room couch.
I nursed my daughter to sleep. While she afternoon-napped, my son recharged, too. We read books. Told each other made-up stories. He entertained himself with toys (a new skill). Finally, the well-behaved toddler let out an annoyed sound and asked for a snack.
I know my son is capable of grabbing a snack, so, to encourage his burgeoning sense of independence, I told him to go into the kitchen and grab himself an apple or some cheese.
He left the room, a hungry boy on a mission, according to his purposeful gait. I listened to the fridge open, heard my son babble to himself. I smiled and turned my attention to the peaceful little girl whose baby breaths tickled my chest. I allowed my eyes to close and drank in the peace of the moment, the weight of a baby against me, the birdsong wafting inside on the breeze. What a perfect day, I thought; and then, it struck me I might be living in the calm before a storm.
It had been long enough since I’d heard my son in the other room.
“Bring your snack out here,” I whisper-called through the house.
A pause, footsteps; my son appeared, beaming, in the doorway between our living and dining rooms. My heart swelled at the sight of his radiant smile.
Then he announced, “Mama, I make a terrible mess!”
In one fluid motion, my sweet boy, still beaming, raised his arm high over his head, squatted low to the ground, and cracked an egg in the middle of the floor.
A moment of stunned silence, broken by my boy’s voice: “Mama, I need a rag.”
I laughed. A big belly laugh. Tears rolled down my cheeks. For a moment I reveled in the absurdity of it, and then realized if my son had cracked an egg on the living room floor, the kitchen was probably a graveyard of breakfast could-have-beens.
Less jovially, I pounded my way to the kitchen, where I was met by a puddle of gooey yolk and shattered shells. A half-dozen eggs, cracked on the linoleum tile.
I wanted to laugh-cry, or scream, so I asked loudly, “What did you do?”
“I try to cook, Mama,” my son said proudly.
He tried cooking. I’d asked him to get himself a snack and the dear child had tried to make himself a meal. One cannot fault industry, and so, instead of blowing my top like a tea kettle, I ushered my son and his icky hands to the sink, instructed him to wash. I picked up the least-cracked egg and smashed it into the sink, where my frustration exploded in a zillion white pieces, which made my son smile and lightened my temperament.
I applauded my son’s efforts, explained how eggs get made – in a pan, on the stove, under supervision – and then I announced our next activity: Mopping.
We did The Mop Hop through the kitchen, my son’s tongue sticking out as he worked diligently to clean the messy floor. By the time he was done, it had never looked better; for as good a mess-maker as he is, my son really is even better at cleaning.
The incident was soon forgotten and the day continued beautifully and at the end of it, when sunset colored the sky outside our windows beautiful, soft pinks and blues, I tucked my son into bed and smiled as he fell into a deep, happy sleep.
Even later, when the sky outside was raven black, I recounted the incident to my husband, smiling the whole story through. Of course, my husband was gutted at the loss of so many eggs, but we agreed that we would take a house full of spills and eggy puddles every single day over a spotless home with no self-starting children to fill it with their voices and their messes, and the incidents that give us timeless idioms like “No use crying over cracked eggs.”
Katherine Mansfield is a former Observer-Reporter staff writer who now serves joyfully as a full-time stay-at-home mom. When she can sneak in a few minutes of writing, she freelances for the newspaper, shares essays and other writings on motherhood on her substack “first drafts,” and fails miserably at promoting her debut novel (which has nothing to do with motherhood), “Original Works by Katharine Hughes.”