Man in my Nose

This little, yellow plastic man has had a pretty dull life, I would imagine, selling ice cream from inside his Matchbox ice cream truck. Until yesterday, that is, when he took the adventure of a lifetime...

...into the depths of Johnathan's nose. Stories conflict about how long he was in there, but Johnathan asked me shortly after bedtime, "Where's ice cream man?" When I told him I didn't know, Johnathan provided the answer, "In my nose!" A flashlight revealed that, indeed, ice cream man was lodged sideways fairly deep in there.

When careful attempts to see if it was dislodgable failed, we thought a trip to the ER was in our near future. Kevin made plans to finish the Bible study he was leading next door and take JJ in. Meanwhile, Johnathan fell asleep, and I took the opportunity to try some tweezers, now that he was still. To my relief, a few swipes got the man out with minimal trauma.

Ice cream man will not be returning to his post inside the truck. I granted him an early retirement. Johnathan asserts he will not put things in his nose anymore. We'll see!

Cooking Lessons

A little cooking lesson from Naomi and Johnathan. Tamales and roast beef with carrots. Bon appetit!

The Boaz Family is pleased to announce...

...that we are expecting Boaz baby #3! The baby is due in June and showed off a sweet little heartbeat on our first doctor's appointment this week.

Naomi is thrilled and cannot contain her good news any longer. She is hoping for a girl.

Johnathan doesn't have much to say about it. He says he has a sister already. :-)

We are thankful and Mommy is just a little nauseous. By God's grace, we look forward to welcoming this new little one to our family!

What I learned from my pastor... 11-8

Originally, Kevin thought he'd preach just from Colossians 3:18 - you know, the good 'ole "Wives, submit..." verse. But somewhere along the way, he said he realized it was pretty tough to preach about this verse in isolation when really it's meant to work in harmony with the next verse addressed to husbands. So, this morning, Kevin preached from the entire Bible starting in Genesis and working through the New Testament... well, maybe not quite, but you get the picture. In considering the Biblical roles of manhood and womanhood, you have to go back to the beginning, when they were created. Kevin talked about how sin has distorted so much about how we perceive manhood and womanhood, resulting in the abuse and subjugation of women for centuries. Even our country, which was founded on Christian principles, hasn't gotten it right.

And in the church there is disagreement as well, between the ends of the spectrum of egalitarianism and complementarianism. Kevin explained why he believes that a complementarian view (that men and women were uniquely created with different roles - men to lead and women to help and submit) lines up best with the whole counsel of the Bible. But, he also pointed out that the way people perceive those roles has more often that not been distorted by sin.

Kevin encouraged us to read and study Colossians 3:18-19, Ephesians 5:21-33, I Corinthians 11:1-3 and 8-9, Titus 2:2-4, and I Peter 1:3-7 this week and examine our own views of our roles in light of those scriptures. And next week, he will address some of the practical working out of the wife's role of submitting and men being called to love. So we have to wait until then!

Johnathan Update #3

Johnathan was a trooper yesterday as he got his MRI. He couldn't eat or drink anything after breakfast, and although he reminded us most of the morning that he was hungry and "sirsty," he really hung in there on the drive to Dell Children's Hospital in Austin and the long wait. He had to be sedated for the MRI, and he had trouble getting down the yucky tasting oral medication. When he spit it up, the nurse gave him IV medication instead. All told, we spent 3 1/2 hours at the radiation clinic. When it was all done, Johnathan was very groggy and wobbly, but he eagerly slurped down 3 juice boxes and a bag of goldfish before he was released!

After the MRI, we went straight to the neurologist's office to discuss the results. The MRI confirmed what the doctor thought, and after a detailed explanantion of prenatal brain development, the doctor explained that as Johnathan's brain was developing before birth, a small "gap" or cleft occured on the left side in the area that affects his gross motor function (the technical term for this is schizencephaly). The malformation is small and appears to be localized to his motor development. The condition does fall under the umbrella term of cerebral palsy, but the doctor characterized it as mild. All this is good news, because the doctor doesn't expect that it should impact his speech or cognitive development, vision, or any other system other than the weakness he's experiencing on the right side of his body. And because he's young, the brain is still developing, and with intervention, we can hopefully minimize the impact it will have on his motor skills as he grows.


The next step is to meet with a whole team of specialists on November 18th. They will xray his hip to check for issues there and check everthing else out. We'll get to meet with the pediatric orthopedic specialist, a brace specialist, physical therapist, and a social worker who will help with accessing services Johnathan will need. Together we'll make a plan for what to do next. That may include bracing, physical therapy, and a possible heel cord lengthening surgery to get his heel to a normal range of motion. So our next update will come after that appointment.


Thank you so much to everyone who's prayed for Johnathan. A big thanks to Mrs. Diana and Mr. Jimmy, too, who took care of Naomi yesterday so she could have fun being a country girl, wearing boots and feeding horses and cows instead of sitting in a doctor's office with us!


Johnathan spent the night in our room so we could keep and eye on him as the medicine wore off. Today he's back to himself and had fun with Naomi on her field trip to the Children's Museum and having a little picnic in the park!

Johnathan Update #2

On Tuesday this week we'll return to the children's hospital in Austin so Johnathan can have an MRI to confirm the diagnosis of hemiparesis causing his toe walking. He'll have to be sedated and can't eat or drink for 4 hours beforehand, so you can pray he'll tolerate that as well as he can (Johnny spends a good part of his days asking for snacks and drinks, so the 2 hour trip to Austin may not be too pleasant for him... or us!). Later in the afternoon we'll travel to the neurologist's office in Round Rock to get the results.

What I learned from my pastor... 11-1

We were encouraged this morning to be at home in God's word this morning, as Kevin preached from Colossians 3:15-17. And when His word dwells richly in us, we can teach and admonish one another. It also results in an overflow of genuine worship. Kevin spent some time talking about our worship in song on Sunday mornings. Having grown up in church, I don't often think about think about this, but this morning I reflected, why do we sing in church? Kevin pointed out that singing psalms (songs from the Word, specifically from the book of, you guessed it, Psalms!), hyms (songs directed toward God in praise of Him), and spiritual songs (testimonies of what God does for us) glorifies God and turns our hearts toward Him. But singing together, like we do on Sunday mornings, also encourages us as we hear truth from the voices around us.