The me I used to be.

I went back through some old photos looking for insight on what I was like in high school. From what I can tell, I was playing the part of a well-educated homeless person.

It's a small consolation that it was the grunge period, which may explain my penchant for plaid.

But seriously, I left the house like this? I showed Rich this photo and he said, "you sorta look like a member of the Beastie Boys except for wearing your dad's old coat." I would like to point out I'm wearing high top Batman Chuck Taylors in this photo. And that I'm up and dressed and at school by 7:40am, something I can't accomplish now in my professional life, regardless of my wardrobe choices.

High school is a bit of a blur to me. I remember feeling frumpy at times. Too big compared to so many other tiny girls. I remember feeling like I was too loud, too opinionated, too sarcastic. I remember trying to join a sport - field hockey then basketball and not enjoying them at all. I remember discovering the dance team and it being one of the best things that happened to me. It still is.

I never had a boyfriend in high school. Sure, I had plenty of crushes, but no one gave me his class ring or invited me to homecoming. At the time I thought this was horrible, but in retrospect it's probably all for the best. No good could have come from anyone I would have dated in high school. And instead of desperately trying to get to third base, I spent my Saturday nights in Becca's den making chocolate chip cookies and watching Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

I always said I wasn't good at making female friends. But until recently when I've discovered blogging buddies and some other moms, the most female friends I had was during high school.

Rich mentioned in the car today that he hoped no one would say they were the same person they were in high school. I'm not sure I agree. I don't see myself as that different that who I was then. I'm a lot more patient and less dogmatic; experience will do that for you. I still feel pretty comfortable in my own skin, though I still feel pretty big compared to others around me. I've just gotten used to it. I still am a bit of a worrier and way too responsible, I've just learned to occasionally shrug stuff off (Zoloft helps with that, I admit).

I still spend a lot of energy on my friends and think it makes me a better person for it. I'm still stubborn. I still hang out with my parents a lot. I still wait til the last minute to complete any assignment. I still regularly make regrettable wardrobe choices when I leave the house in the morning.

The biggest thing I can see is that while I didn't change that much, I feel like everyone and everything around me has for the better. I found a handsome husband who appreciates my Batman Chucks. I found a job where I can wear jeans and flip flops to the office (take THAT, private school dress code!). I found an outlet for my creativity in writing and sewing. And I've found many many many friends along the way. The only things I miss from high school are being able to sing every morning and dance every afternoon. I should work on that.

Overall, though, I still feel like me.

Feeding a toothless toddler

We didn't necessarily plan it this way, but Rich and I have divided labors so that I'm in charge of baby input and he's in charge of baby output. That means that Rich washes, dries, stuffs and preps the cloth diapers for day care and I buy, prepare and package Ian's meals for day care. We're both still responsible for actually getting food into him and dirty diapers off of him as needed. Since our son is 11 months old and has just started to show the tiniest buds of bottom teeth, he hasn't really been able to chew much that's tough. The larger issue is that he wants to feed himself but we need to make sure he won't shove an entire steak down his gullet. I've tried a few of the pre-packaged toddler meals and they are absolutely disgusting. I have a firm rule that I won't feed him anything that I wouldn't eat myself.

I'm not into making tons of food and freezing it, for whatever reason. I much prefer the "crap, I need something for Ian's food tomorrow, what's in the fridge I can prep real quick?" plan. So below are some of our favorites.

Meats Rotisserie chicken. I buy one every Sunday and use it to dice into bite-sized pieces for him all week. Thinly sliced deli turkey, cut up Crab meat. Not krab meat, mind you, but the real stuff. This is only on special occasions since it costs approximately $1000 per pound. That reminds me, I need to make crab cakes with the rest.

Fruits and Veggies Half a banana. Strawberries or blueberries (only if in season) Grapes cut in half (such a pain to make, though)

Sauteed spinach. Each leaf is a mouthful and Ian loves it! Sauteed mushrooms, cut up Sauteed squash. I buy one and it lasts for a week of lunches. Baby carrots. I take 4 and put them in a bowl of water in the microwave for 2 minutes. Broccoli florets, boiled til very soft Sweet potato. I put one in the toaster oven for an hour to bake it and then cut it up over the week.

Snacks Puffs. Thank you Target for all those little rice puffy things. The little fruit flavored ones and the larger veggie ones are big hits. They also have these Mum mum veggie rice surfboard shaped things that are tasty.

Rice bars. If you break it into little pieces, it helps.

YoBaby yogurt. This stuff is so tasty! They sell a 12 pack of them at BJs Wholesale Club for $6.49 but it's hard to find in my regular grocery stores. Ian eats one every afternoon for a snack. Other yogurts gross me out because they're so sugary.

Fig Newtons. This is a recent discovery and he does pretty well with self-feeding. Though I did notice some fig residue on the back of my sweatshirt the other day.

Dining Out Panera will sell you an extra baggie of chicken like they put on the salads for $1. It's free-range, hormone free and very tender. I used to share the chicken with Ian out of my salad til I realized he was eating almost all of it!

When we get sushi, Ian gets a little bowl of sushi rice and a few slices of avocado. I'll also give him a piece of tofu out of my miso soup if I'm feeling generous.

Most restaurants have broccoli cheddar soup and Ian loves it. I'll add it to my meal for a small fee and it fills him up.

Experimental I've tried scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese but Ian doesn't seem to be a fan. I did make cheese toast (cut up small) once and he liked that but WOW that was a lot of work for not much food going in his belly. We also tried pork chops the other night, which he liked but I had to pre-chew to get it tender enough for him. Not really something I can tell the ladies at day care to do!

What are some other ideas I can use for feeding our growing boy?

P.S. In case you didn't see my Twitter/Facebook updates, my post about two shirts got syndicated at BlogHer.com. Check it out!

Two shirts

It started out as a chat about solo parenting. I was at my parents with Ian while Rich was away for the day. He had been up all night earlier that week with Ian while I was away on business. Our baby is incredibly good but sometimes just knowing you're the only adult around can be a drag. Mom talked about going out of town for training when Doug was little and Daddy held down the fort. She had called late Saturday night and no one answered because they were down at the beach. And when she called again on Sunday, Daddy said they were doing laundry so Doug would have a shirt for school on Monday.

"Doug had plenty of shirts so I didn't understand why they were doing laundry, but Daddy said the one he really wanted to wear was dirty so they were doing laundry."

While she told me this, my father was out in the front yard pushing my fussy son around in the stroller. This was partially because there is no room in their house to easily walk around with him.

Mom sighed. "You know, when Daddy was in high school, he only had two shirts. He used to lie awake in bed worrying about which shirt he would wear because they had different classes on different days and he didn't want everyone to see him wearing the same shirt two days in a row but if he alternated then he'd wear the same shirt to each class. So I guess he wanted to make sure Doug had exactly the shirt he wanted to wear to school."

I looked around my parents' living room. Within arms reach, there were probably two dozen of my father's plaid button down shirts hanging on various pieces of furniture. Ian had pulled several down on us earlier that evening while scampering around on the sofa. There are hundreds of shirts (and many other things) crammed in my parents' ranch home. My parents are pack rats.

Earlier that week I was reading a trashy magazine in the hair salon. It featured several half page ads for the A&E series Hoarders. One page had a crushed aluminum can with the text "prized possession" under it. Another page showed a shriveled up dish sponge with "sentimental value" under it. Seeing the ads made my stomach hurt and my face got hot with a complicated combination of anger and sadness. I've never actually watched an episode of Hoarders and I'm not sure I could.

With the show's growing popularity, though, I've noticed several writers casually mention that the clutter in their house has reached Hoarder levels. Heather Armstrong just talked about all the clutter in their home office that looked positively barren to me. And it's the kind of statement made for humor and to relate to most people's habit of keeping a little bit of worthless crap around. George Carlin even has a routine about trying to find a place for our stuff.

My family would probably be considered hoarders. But as we sat in my parents' living room amongst the piles of papers ready to avalanche and the sea of plaid button down shirts hanging from every surface I thought of my dad as an awkward teenager. After fretting his way through the age when what you wear seems more important than anything, I could see where the idea of throwing away or even giving away a perfectly good shirt would be unfathomable.

My father has shirts for every occasion. Dress shirts. Civic league meeting shirts. Yard shirts. Crawling under the house shirts. All of them came from the thrift store and none of them probably cost over $4 each. Would one of those experts from the TV show come in and shovel all of their possessions into a dumpster?

Don't misunderstand, my parents have too much stuff. It's overwhelming and even a little frustrating. But deciding how to get rid of it is heartbreaking. There has to be a middle ground, one without camera crews. Each of us needs to decide for ourselves how many proverbial shirts we need.