fabulous fall

Jax is 9 months old and more fun than ever! At his 9 month check up he was 28 inches and 18 pounds. He's a little small, but otherwise perfectly healthy. He has one tooth, which just showed up. He didn't really have any teething symptoms so hopefully the rest come in just as easily. He eats all kinds of things now. He loves tofu and berries. Some doctors said not to do berries until age 1 and others said go for it. So I went for it and he hasn't had any adverse reactions so all's well that ends well. He can crawl at lightning speed, cruise around the furniture, stand without holding on for a few seconds, and climb the stairs. That's right, he climbed up two stairs and then fell down yesterday. We already have 3 baby gates, but I guess we'll be adding a 4th. He also enjoys climbing over the protector we built for our fireplace and just hanging out on the hearth. I don't think we'll be building many fires this year.

We took him to a pumpkin patch last weekend. We went on a hayride and he just stared at the tractor the entire time. I don't think he quite knew what it was. I only had one objective for this trip- to buy a pumpkin big enough for Jackson to fit in. I found just the pumpkin and the results are below.After I took Jax out of the pumpkin I carved this Yoda!

2 Weeks (mostly) Meat Free

We have been living the meat free life for 2 weeks now. The first week I did eat two lunch meat sandwiches because I did not want to waste the $7 I spent on organic lunch meat! Other than that all of our weekday meals were meat free. We went to a football game on Saturday and I had a chicken salad sandwich for lunch, but I think that was the only meat we ate that weekend. Here are our meals for the past two weeks:

Dinners:
Cheese Ravioli with vegetables
"lasagna" made with polenta, ToFurky Italian sausage, marinara sauce, zucchini, red peppers, and cheese
Cheese tortellini with spinach and fake chicken
Jason's Deli Veggie Muffelata
Veggie Fajitas at a restaurant
TVP stoganoff
Stir fry with rice
Stuffed portabella mushrooms

Lunches:
baked potato with vegetarian chilli and cheese
leftovers from dinner
veggie burger with cheese
Keith takes a peanut butter and jelly every day

Breakfast:
oatmeal with flax, cinnamon, and blueberries
egg and cheese biscuit (why does there have to be a McDonald's across the street from work)
Luna bar

It's been going well so far. I like to cook and it has been pretty easy to substitute out the meat in our dinners. We didn't really eat that much to begin with so it hasn't been a hard change. All of my recipes have turned out fine using soy milk. We are still using regular cheese because I just like it better than the substitutes.

We had Chic Fil A chicken biscuits today but we're sticking to meatless lunch and dinner. I'm going to try out veggie sausage for biscuits and gravy tomorrow. Can you tell we eat Fatty McFatterton breakfasts on the weekend?

Just hanging out

Jackson is obsessed with the dishwasher. He hears it open and comes crawling as fast as he can every time. Tonight, instead of just standing and swatting at the dishes and pulling out the rack like he usually does, he climbed all the way in! I'm sure that the appropriate parenting response would have been to pull him out. Instead I said, "Keith don't let him fall, I'm going to get the camera."

Meat Free

Another big event at our house is that we are no longer eating meat. I have several friends who are vegetarian so we have already been eating 2 or 3 meatless dinners per week. We recently watched a documentary called "Forks over Knives" and that helped us decide to go meat free. We are not going to eat meat through the week. We do like to go out on weekend nights so if we see a yummy looking meat free dish, we'll have it. If we don't then we'll eat meat. Weekends are also usually when we go to friends' houses so unless it's already a meat free house, we're not expecting anyone to go out of their way for us.

This decision has nothing to do with morality. I grew up on a farm. I had pet rabbits and watched my dad skin them for dinner, we had chickens that we ate, we had cows and pigs, I learned early that the purpose of these animals was to feed our family and I never felt sad when they died. It just seemed like part of life. My dad always hunted when I was little. It may make me seem mean but truthfully I don't worry myself much over the treatment of farm animals. I also think dogs and cats should live outside, but my husband (and most people) disagree so we have indoor dogs. But that's another rant...

This decision does have everything to do with health. The documentary we watched, as well as other information I have read, warned of the dangers of the Western Diet. We eat far more meat than any other industrialized nation and have far more health problems. I know a lot of people argue that anything in moderation is fine, but I don't think we even know what moderation means anymore.

I'll update in a few months to let everyone know how the (mostly) meat free life is going!

my dream's come true

It's been hectic around the Boddie house. Jackson is a busy little bee now that he can crawl so by the time he's in bed I'm usually too exhausted for blogging. But I have a few minutes so I wanted to share one of the greatest moments in my life: I washed an elephant!


When I was a little girl I saw some kids give an elephant a bath on Sesame Street. The song "splish splash, I was taking a bath" was playing and the kids were using giant deck brooms to clean the elephant. Since that day I have loved elephants and have always wanted to wash one. Since I live in Georgia and not on the African plains I thought that this was a dream that would never be realized, however my husband found a program at the Atlanta Zoo that said "don't miss your chance to bathe an elephant". So for my 30th birthday I became a keeper for a day at the zoo. I got to clean up elephant poop, put out their food, feed an elephant from my hands, hold a canvas while an elephant painted it, and give an elephant a bath. It was a wonderful day. I loved every second of it and when I retire I might become an elephant washer instead of a greeter at Wal Mart.

Meet Mr. Neb

Mr. Neb is our new nebulizer. Monday was my first day back at work. Keith was going to feed Jackson and take him to daycare. When I got him up and dressed I noticed that he was wheezing but I just thought it was from the cold he had for a few days. I guess it got worse after I left, because Keith called me and said Jackson was having an asthma attack and couldn't breathe. Of course I freaked out and started crying. I found my principal and she could tell that something was wrong. I explained the situation and she let me leave work. We took Jackson to his pediatrician who told us that he could probably continue breathing that way for a few days before he would just get tired and go in to respiratory arrest. That is information we could have done without. My dad came down to watch Jackson so he wouldn't have to go to daycare with the breathing machine.

My dad left on Saturday morning and Jackson is doing much better. We didn't have to do any breathing treatments today and he is back to his normal happy self. I am so thankful that my baby is okay. This week was so stressful.

An object in motion...........

It's true an object in motion stays in motion until it is acted upon by a force, that object is now my son and the force is usually me trying to redirect him. Jackson started crawling last night and has been practicing all day.

Who did he crawl to first, you might wonder. Was it his Mama or his Daddy? Neither. It was his Aunt Candace! Keith and I have been dangling toys, laying on the floor, and practically standing on our heads to get him to crawl for the last few weeks. All we have gotten is a big smile and a baby rocking back and forth on his hands and knees. Yesterday the Beachum family came over for dinner and Candace laid down on the floor in front of Jackson and called him and he came right over. He just crawled like it was no big deal. I couldn't believe it. I guess he's a typical kid, showing off for aunts and uncles instead of mom and dad!

Here's a video taken this morning: