I think I can say ‘we’ve moved’ even though the number of moving boxes in our living room would suggest that we are still in the process of moving. On one hand, there are rolled-up rugs in the entryway with four weeks’ worth of shoes piled on top of them. On the other hand, our kids are already sounding Bavarian. We definitely live here. (Tegernheim, Germany, landkreis Regensburg.)

Did you know that I am someone who will use a Skil saw inside her own house*? The house that I am responsible for cleaning? That I will do this even though we only have one vacuum cleaner bag left? Yes, it’s true. What I will not do is fire up the Skil saw outside, in the rain, at 6:30 on a weekend morning with 30 neighbors within easy hearing distance. This is the sort of dilemma that comes up all the time in parenting: do you do A, or B, when B is unacceptable but A is a pain in the ass and will leave you feeling unrewarded for your sacrifice? You do A. This is why parenting is tedious. I scrambled 6 eggs for breakfast but then the kids revolted ad refused to eat any. Do I:

• A – eat 6 scrambled eggs, or
• B – throw away perfectly good food

I’m not doing B, so now I’m uncomfortably full and I didn’t have room for any delicious toast and by the time I finally finished all those eggs they were cold and gross and my kids are selfish little rat finks who would not do the same kindness for me that I have done for them. Ugh. And at no point ever is anyone (except maybe you) going to (comments are open) praise me for my selfless (feel free to comment below) act.

This sort of thing always makes me think of my parents, who spent years finishing my cold eggs. They are amazing people – teachers, farmers, big-picture thinkers. They do the right thing, even when it’s hard. Thanks, Mom and Dad. I also think of my sister, a wonderfully thoughtful woman who works actively every day to make her community and the world a better place, and who once told me to crunch up an Oreo into my chewing gum so that I could blow bigger bubbles. Liar. I, meanwhile, spent a childhood fighting about whose turn it was to sit in the front seat and when my sister’s saintly/smug patience made me feel bad about being such a whiner, I would scratch her in the face. I was awful. I also think about my brother, who is incredibly generous, loving, and hardworking as an adult and who, as a child, routinely cried, crossed his little arms over his little chest, and refused to eat when his sandwich fell apart. What a little shit!

I don’t know exactly what the childhood predictors are for being good people as adults, but I’m hoping that my kiddos’ occasional egg avoidance doesn’t translate into de-regulation-of-emmisions-during-climate-crisis/tax evasion/close-the-borders-behind-me levels of selfishness as grown-ups. I’m hopeful they will be caring, kind people like my brother and sister and me; I’m hoping they will grow up to be egg-eaters, too.

Love to all from the south German suburbs. Come visit.

*in case you haven’t, and to be clear I encourage you not to, the problem is sawdust EVERYWHERE. In the toothbrushes. Everywhere.

(If you think that you’re especially clever and have devised an option C that involves putting scrambled eggs in the fridge, I will say goodbye for now and will see you in a week back at option B.)