Cleaning out the fridge

As most people do as the calendar rolls over, I have spent a lot of time over the past few days cleaning out the fridge. First, there was the issue of Christmas leftovers; despite having had a menu and assigned dishes for everyone to bring, we wound up with way too much food, and Chad and I ate as much of the leftovers as we could before we wound up chucking the rest. Then, there is all the crap that accumulates over the holidays. I'd be lying if I said there weren't at least a few meals last week that consisted of some combo of chips + candy or candy + crackers or crackers + cookies... I think my entire trans fat quota for 2006 was used up during the last week of 2005 alone. We did our best to clear that out too (one way or another - wink wink) before January and the whole slate-is-clean-let's-be-healthy thing.

During this stock-taking of the contents of our fridge and cupboards, it also came time to update what's on the menu for Liam. I am actually kind of shocked at how quickly this has happened. It seems like only yesterday I was spooning ultra-runny rice cereal into him, and nothing else. These days, his meals are consisting more and more of real people food. For lunch today, he had a bagel, some marble cheese, some pears (admittedly, they were cooked - but not pureed) and then of course the requisite Cheerios that he seems unable to live without as a lunchtime staple. I still have ice cube trays full of homemade baby food purees, but he is showing less and less interest in goopy, mucky foods and more interest in the hardcore stuff that requires chewing - even if his teeth, all six of them, are still nothing more than little nubs. So, for the next couple of weeks I am going to make a point of using up all the babyish baby foods we have in the house - I didn't peel and chop and steam all those carrots for nothing - before he dives whole-hog into the real grownup stuff. Each week's grocery shopping trips include more and more real foods just for him. This week it's the cheese and grape juice and unsalted rice cakes - I bet he can hardly wait.