Reason #1 to become a vegetarian: The ham, the Christmas ham!

Christmas Claire

And I do mean the whole ham. When I went home to visit the family for Christmas, I found out that I probably needed to adjust the level of complacency I had surrounding leaving food out on the counter. Claire was 9 months old. She was a big girl, with a cavernous maw that we soon found out could accommodate an entire ham. While helping my mom with Christmas dinner, we were running back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. As you have most likely guessed by now, upon one ill-fated return to the kitchen, we found that Claire had the entire Christmas ham in her mouth. My mother, ever the perfect hostess, quietly and without fear delicately extruded the ham from Claire’s jaws and promptly placed it in the sink, whereupon she began muttering to herself, "the ham, the Christmas ham!" The calm way that my mom handled it, the clandestine task of “washing off all this slobber” seemed an every day event. As I stood watching, slack-jawed, my mom simply said, “Be glad you’re a vegetarian.” If my family does indeed read this blog, then Mom, I’m sorry, but everyone will probably want to eat out for a while.