On Feeding Growing Boys

Just returned home from my second shopping trip in three days.  My sons (currently aged 13 and 11, may all the angels help me when they get older) both eat like they are perpetually one step from starvation.

As an example, let's talk about the amount of milk I go through.  Then: "Oh, a couple of half gallon containers a week is enough.  Any bigger a container and the milk will go bad before it's drunk."
Now: I buy three to four gallons at a time, and we probably go through five gallons a week total!  Thing One can drink most of a gallon a day by himself.  At least he has good strong bones.  (He would have to, wouldn't he???)

Or eggs.  Geez, the eggs. Used to be that a dozen would sit in my fridge for a week or two and I mostly used them for baking.  The boys have now discovered egg sandwiches and scrambled eggs for breakfast, which I encourage because both are athletes and protein in the morning is good.  (Sure beats the crappy over-processed, high-sugar cereals they like.)  In the past six months I've gone from buying them by the dozen to buying them 18 at a time, and today I broke down and bought a 30-pack.  It's that or go to the store every couple of days!

Bread: three or four loaves a week.  Orange juice: four half-gallons a week.  (Calcium-fortified, since Petunia categorically refuses to drink milk or eat most dairy products.)  Yogurt: two or three 8-packs at a time.

And then there's fruit.  Oh good grief.  Thing Two canNOT be trusted when there's fruit in the fridge.  He'd eat four apples a day if he could get away with it.  I buy several five-pound bags at a time for him!  (Better than chips or cookies, right??)  We probably go through 20 pounds of fruit a week.

Thing One already eats as much as most grown men.  He's almost the height of the average grown man and not even in high school yet: about 5'8" right now.  Thing Two eats more than I do, but has a way to go to catch up with his brother.  Both are tall and slender and fit.  Thing Two could easily have another foot or so to grow yet, and Thing One probably has at least another six inches coming.  The mind absolutely boggles!!  I might as well live at the grocery store...at least a Costco will be opening nearby this fall.