Our family reached a new benchmark this week: we became a "two rotisserie chicken family."

It wasn't so much related to needing more chicken, as it was needing enough drumsticks for everyone, but to my surprise, I ended up with two piles of chicken bones and not much else in no time flat.I guess I deserved this because only a few weeks ago, I laughed at a friend's Facebook post lamenting the fact that her family had now become a "two packs of bacon" family.Her comment made me remember when we became that family, and also when we became a "two gallon of milk family" and a "two pizza family."Now I'm getting a little nervous about becoming the "three pizza family" and I'm not even going to tell you how many gallons of milk we go through in a week.Before you think we're a bunch of gluttons, please remember that two out of three children are growing boys, who have a reputation for being bottomless pits.I hate to stereotype, but in this case it fits. Those boys can eat. Technically, we have three growing boys in the house, although, like most of us in middle age, the Wonderful Husband is none too happy about the direction that he tends to grow in these days.The kids are also swimmers. If you know anything about the life of a competitive swimmer, you know that their lives are 1/3 swimming, 1/3 sleeping, and 1/3 eating. If there was any way that they could figure out how to eat while they are doing the other two, they would.Luckily, we are nowhere near Michael Phelps' 12,000 calories a day menu, but I have a feeling I should end that statement with a "yet."Even though I know this phenomenon exists, I still find myself in denial at times.For example, I will buy a box of goldfish crackers on Sunday night, expecting to use them to fill lunchboxes all week. On Tuesday morning, I find myself rooting through the snack cupboard and waking the kids up early, because I can't find the crackers."Yeah, Mom, we finished those for snack yesterday" is usually the answer. Then, they go off to school with a few hundred fewer calories than they need. They return home in the afternoon absolutely ravenous, and there goes Thursday and Friday's lunch snacks, too.It's a constant battle to keep them eating regular meals and healthy snacks, especially when they suck food up like vacuum cleaners. I also struggle with buying huge amounts of bulk items. It seems like their appetites expand to whatever is available, so the more of something we have, the more of it they feel the need to eat.For dry goods, like crackers, I can try to hide the giant box and ration it out as needed, but when it comes to cases of Go-Gurt, the kids have figured out that I keep them behind the frozen casserole dish of mystery meat that's been in the freezer for 5 years.Of course none of us has any impulse control when it comes to the occasional cookie or sweet treat, so I don't bother to bring them into the house regularly.Even when it's something healthy, like apple slices, my kids will gorge on them, and I will resign myself to the fact that I need to buy 15 pounds of apples a week. Then, one day, they will just turn off the apple switch, and I will be left with a bowl of rotting apples.If I'm lucky, I can turn them into apple cinnamon muffins. This works for apples, carrots, bananas, and a lot of other fruits and veggies, but I have yet to figure out what to do with a bag of tiny oranges that is well past their freshness date.It's really annoying when we have our stash of healthy, middle-aged snacks like trail mix, nutrition bars, and Greek yogurt invaded by the little hoodlums. Things got positively savage the day I discovered that E had chowed down on my little yogurt snack cups with the side of nuts and granola. "But I was hunnnnnnnnnngry, Mom" was her explanation. Ten minutes later, she reminded me that she was still "starving."The boys' favorite move is to pick through trail mix and take all the "good stuff" out, leaving only raisins and nuts for us. We should be thanking them for saving us the extra calories, but darn it, there are some days when I was counting on those three M&M's.It's difficult to remind our middle-aged, slowing metabolisms that we're not actively growing like the three other members of the household, and we don't need to eat like they do. I believe that all children are part Hobbit and need at least seven meals a day. Unfortunately, I don't think my current physique should be having more than two, and they should be small ones.Eventually, I may have to consider adding a third job if they keep this up, because what goes in, must come out, so we are also the family that needs to ask "do you make a bigger bargain pack of toilet paper?"Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.