I was listening to Catherine Ryan (Radio NZ) talking to a man about how to tell which kids will succeed, he was talking about testing, but it’s all about what they do when they fail, how they react to failure, what they do with the questions they get wrong. I was also discussing with a friend Helena’s disposition, where she has a massive reaction (so over the top, it’s the worst, it is devastating) yet 30 minutes later she’s found some way of making it what she meant or having some new idea, the sunny side is up.

At the beginning of the EGG project I thought that this would go the way of many projects and be abandoned. The first step was getting her to make it her self, easy to say harder to achieve. After many supported tries where I mostly did it we achieved her saying she would try it. Try number one was at breakfast time (mistake) tears, tears and more tears as it wasn’t perfect, she ate it but it was NOT perfect. Neither was the next one which I apparently ruined by putting the white that ran out of the hole back into the bread once it was cooked. Then there was also the accidental burn that she had tears over, not the burn but having to put it under the tap.

This perfect egg in toast was at lunch time. Helena ate an orange first, on purpose -her idea to stop any hungry anger like difficulties, then she let the oil get hot enough “when I put it in it sizzled, it was perfect” and she was happy. Since then she has made it for her Grandpa and I for lunch one day, though there were tears due to having to wait for hers to cook after we got ours.

Since then they have become a regular breakfast thing and are getting more and more “perfect” with her noticing other things to to make them better – type of bread, hole size, experience in egg cracking, amount of oil, and heating the pan first. I think she’s doing alright with the egg test.