We colored 35 eggs last night. It would have 36, but I crushed the one I was trying to put a rubberband around for stripe-making, and quickly gave up on that idea as the vision of 36 crushed eggs rose before my eyes. I boiled them in batches of 10 and then boiled another big pot of water for the dye. We use the old fashioned method in our family, none of that fancy egg-coloring-kit-stuff for us. (I'm dissing the wire hoop again,
5 drops of food coloring
1/2 cup boiling water
1 tsp vinegar
voilà! 4 bowls filled with steaming blue, green, red, yellow water. The kids are so excited they're buzzing. We use spoons to roll the eggs around, covering them over and over with colored water. Each egg deepens and darkens. Earlier, while the water was boiling, we used crayons to draw rabbits, chicks, flowers and Bionicles on some of the eggs. We wrote Happy Easter and Glad Påsk on others. Dunk, dunk, dunk, the eggs clink against the sides of the bowl. "Gentle!" I say. I make a half-and-half egg by holding one side in the blue bowl and then turning it over and doing the other side in yellow. Karin only wants to make half-and-halfs after that. I do a couple of striped ones: one end in the red, other end in the blue, quick dunk in the yellow for the middle. Anders makes one striped in the colors of the Ducati logo.
35 eggs go quickly with 4 people. The eggs are nestled back in the cartons, glowing in pastel colors. Karin is mad because they're all gone. "Go buy some more, Mama!" she admonishes. She could color eggs all night, I think.
Looking Forward To: the Easter egg hunt and picnic on Sunday,
He'll Bend Over and Take It, See For Yourself: Subservient Chicken