The human garbage disposal

I grew up in a family of girls.
It wasn't until high school that I witnessed the awe-inspiring spectacle that was a teenage boy at the dinner table.
Now I am beginning to wonder if that tendency starts...early. Like say, five months.

Scott's always been a healthy milk drinker. He was regularly drinking six ounces every three to 3.5 hours when we decided to start him on solid food.
And now, I am truly amazed by how much my little Tank can pack away. I worry that I am overfeeding him. But he knows when he's hungry, and he has no problem turning his head away when he's had enough, so I try not to stress too much.

Hand over the bowl mommy. I'll show you how big boys eat.

Enough of that little baby spoon already! I am going in with both hands!

Jim is taking it more in stride. Maybe that's because he grew up in a house with three boys. He tells me how his parents could never keep food in the refrigerator. He and his brothers would come home and descend on that poor appliance like a herd of locusts, snatching up whatever they could get their hands on. A gallon of milk? Check. Turkey leg? Yum. Half a jar of peanut butter? Why not?

One day he sat on the couch and watched on his brother consume the better part of a bag of chips and an entire jar of salsa. In one sitting.

I must have the same look on my face as I feed my little guy dinner. I look at the daycare sheet and calculate. Milk for breakfast. A container of applesauce as a mid-morning snack. Milk for lunch. Half a container of sweet potatoes. More milk. And then here we are at dinner. Half a container of squash, two tablespoons of oatmeal -- mixed with two teaspoons of pears -- and more milk before bed.

Dinner. Yum.

Maybe its just a growth spurt. Or maybe I have a life-long healthy eater on my hands. I can already see the day I come home and discover that my refrigerator, well-stocked in the morning, is now a picked-over wasteland.

I'll dispatch Jim to Costco - and tell him to buy a couple jumbo sized bags of chips.