Averaging.

I decided last night as I prepped the dry ingredients for the pancakes that I really wanted to have some myself. So I planned whole-wheat blueberry pancakes (healthy!) and made berry sauce to go on top.  

And then I lay in bed and fretted about whether I wasn't going to be getting enough protein for breakfast, whether the carbohydrate overload would make my blood sugar crash and force me to make it up with Swedish Fish, and shouldn't I eat a boiled egg too just to be safe?

But wait!  That would mean eating TWO breakfasts.  Surely that can't be right.  Better just eat my egg.

But wait!  I already made the berry sauce.  Two whole wheat pancakes with a couple tablespoons of berry sauce is a fine breakfast.  I am allowed to have this.  Something different, for variety.

But I already know that I really do best if I get my egg.  Maybe if I eat the egg and ONE pancake.

Now wait a minute.  That's not "something different for variety."  That's "my usual breakfast, plus a pancake I don't need just because I want it."

Probably because I think of boiled eggs as quantum entities, it took me a long time to come up with what in retrospect seems obvious:  I made a ten-minute egg, peeled it, and cut it in half.  I had half an egg — that is, half my usual breakfast — and one pancake with a tablespoon of berry sauce — that is, half the planned breakfast.  One single breakfast, the average of the "usual" and the "different."  

And I ordered Mark to eat the other half-egg.