Eggs

Archer is having a great school year thanks to Mr. A, the teacher in the school that every kid hopes to have once he reaches fifth grade. And it's things like this that add to Mr. A's appeal...

Mr. A currently has a styrofoam container with a clear plastic lid on top and a bunch of eggs inside. Fifteen or twenty eggs, different shades of brown and white, just waiting... Archer reported that they were hearing cheeping coming from the eggs. Archer says that when the chicks are ready to hatch, they start cheeping, and wake each other up. On the day he told us about this, there were only a few cracks in some of the eggs, but none had hatched. The next morning, I went with Archer to school to drop off some paperwork, and there in the hallway was the styrofoam box with clear plastic lid and SEVEN CHICKS! They had hatched overnight and were crowding around each other and the rest of the unhatched eggs, cheeping and climbing around, the fluffiest cutest things you could find in an elementary school hallway.

At dinner that night, Archer reported that another five had hatched during the day. He told us about how Mr. A showed the chicks how to drink water ("you have to shove their face down in the water so they know what it is, then they'll drink it"). This spurred a conversation about how the chicks break out of their shells. And Elijah was the expert. He demonstrated, he told us how it's done, he said they lean their heads back "like this!" as he tilts his own head back. Then they move their head forward "really quick, and just BREAK the shell like this." "Then they just push the shell away" he says, stretching his arms out above his head, like stretching when you first wake up in the morning.

I asked him if he knows that because he remembers when he broke out of his shell. "You used to have a beak, you used it to break out of the shell, then the beak fell off, like when your baby teeth fall out." He agreed, and then smiled and said he was never in an egg and that's not what happened, then didn't quite know if I was joking or not. I told him he knows all about it because he used to be in a shell and then he broke out, just like the chicks. In the end, I'm not sure what he believed. But there is a little chance he might have believed it. I wonder how long we can keep that one going?