Please pass the ketchup...

When I was in my second trimester of pregnancy with Banner, I craved ketchup. I'm pretty sure I blogged about it back then, but I can't find the entry. Anyway, the most vivid memory of my near compulsive NEED to consume absolutely ridiculous amounts of tomato-based condiments took place when I was visiting some of my high school besties in Martha’s Vineyard in June of 2011. I literally ordered fries at every meal so I could have a socially acceptable vehicle in which shovel copious amounts of ketchup into my pie hole.

Y’all. Trust me. It wasn’t pretty.

In fact, there may have been a moment of sheer weakness – before my French fry order could be filled one afternoon – when one of my friends caught me squirting a ketchup packet into my mouth behind a tree when I thought no one was looking.

(Definitely not one of my finer or prouder moments. Almost two years later, and I’m still disgusted with myself.)

(It is also a true testament to friendship that Anna still loves and accepts me after seeing that. Because it was about one hundred different ways of EW.)

The funny thing about the whole thing was that I’ve never been an especially big fan of ketchup. I mean, I’ll occasionally dip a fry in the stuff, but I’m usually more of a salt and pepper kind of girl. But throw in a few pregnancy hormones and my desire for ketchup that summer was borderline pathological. Thankfully, once I gave birth, the craving disappeared and I no longer found myself wanting to sneak hits of ketchup in the alley like a heroin addict.

Banner, though? Well, we let him try some over the weekend for the first time, and later discovered him licking his fingers and sucking it off of a piece of bread with a look of pure joy and exhilaration on his face. I’m pretty sure we’ve created a monster. 

I can’t help but feel more than a little responsible...