Funny Boy

Powerless

One thing I've learned since moving to Nashvile is that folks in these parts don't like snow... or even the forecast of a slight chance of snow. 

So I wasn't surprised yesterday afternoon when I heard the radio DJ say Nashville was under a Winter Weather Advisory.  They we were expecting 1-2 inches of snow.  (1-2 inches?!  Where I come from, we call that half-time.)  I also wasn't surprised when I received an e-mail around 3 p.m. informing me that the university was closing early due to "deteriorating weather conditions". It was snowing, but I really wasn't concerned.  Nevertheless, we left work about 30 min. early, mostly because people drive like maniacs when the first snowflake falls.  So we wanted to beat the crazies...

Apparently everyone in Nashville had the same idea.  Traffic was insane.

This might be a good time to mention that Snuggles has a cold (again!).  As often happens when Snuggles has nasal congestion, he gets a cough and wheezes.  When that happens, we have to give him breathing treatments (with a nebulizer) every 3-4 hours to keep his breathing under control until he recovers.

While we navigated through traffic, Snuggles coughed up a storm in the backseat.  I said to Guitarman, "Well, he's going to need breathing treatments tonight.  I'll give him one as soon as we get home." 

We drove along listening to Snuggle wheeze and cough.  Guitarman seemed worried.  In an effort to distract him, I joked about the unnecessary panic over the snow.  I pulled out my cell phone and posted on my Facebook status:  "We're having a heat wave... a tropical heat wave."  When we stopped at a light, Guitarman posted on his Facebook status: "Oh no... an inch or so expected.  Call in the National Guard!"

Had we known what lay ahead for the evening, we wouldn't have laughed.

We arrived home about 4:45 p.m. to discover the garage door wouldn't open.  Thinking the remote batteries were dead, I got out of the truck and tried the remote in the other car.  No luck. That's when it occurred to me that the electricity might be out.

We barely made it in the front door before John's mom called down from upstairs:  "The power went out about 4:15."  Lovely.

Meanwhile, Snuggles was really coughing and wheezing. He needed a breathing treatment, but we had no electricity to operate the nebulizer.  So I called some friends from church who live nearby.  We all piled into the truck, and made our way to their house.  We quickly gave Snuggles a breathing treatment, and then headed out to dinner.

I was worried that Snuggles would be a challenge at the restaurant because he had not been sleeping well due to the coughing, and he just wasn't feeling well.  Fortunately, Snuggles was great at dinner.  In fact, he was quite entertaining.

He played with Daddy's hat.

And entertained all the folks around us by flapping his arms like a bird.
(He does that when he's excited.)

When we headed home from Cracker Barrel, the roads were getting worse.  Most of the cars were off the roads by then, and things were getting icy.  We were sure our power would be back on by the time we got home...

Wrong.

We sat in the warm truck in our driveway and discussed our options. We debated going to a hotel, but realized it would be a pain in the butt major undertaking to pack up Snuggles, John's mom, the dog and all our crap stuff (in the dark). Plus, we really didn't want to pay for a hotel because we were certain the electricity would be restored soon.  After all, they wouldn't leave people without heat in the middle of snowstorm, right?

Wrong again.

Using my phone, we got on the Nashville Electric web site, hoping for some insight on why our power had been out for almost four hours, especially since the power lines are buried underground in our subdivision.  The NES web site featured an "Outage Map" that clearly identified our subdivision (and several other subdivisions near ours) were without electricity.  The Outage Map was color-coded to show when crews were dispatched and working in the area. But for our area it said, "No crews dispatched".  Translation: We're sorry it's cold and snowing, but you're out of luck.

At that point, it was after 8 p.m.  Snuggles was coughing and wheezing again.  He needed another breathing treatment...  So we got John's mom settled in the house in front of the fireplace (gas!), and we headed back out to find some electricity.

A nearby McDonalds allowed us to use an electrical outlet to plug in Snuggles' nebulizer, and we ignored the curious stares directed our way as Snuggles screamed through his breathing treatment.  (He couldn't help his Mama out by sitting quietly for his treatment for once.)

On our way back home, we saw Nashville Electric trucks headed toward our house.  Eureka! We also saw some work trucks in our subdivision when we arrived back home.  So we knew they were working on restoring power.  After seeing the "No crews dispatched" message on the electric company's web site, those work crews were a comforting sight.

We decided to stay at the house, hoping the electric would be restored soon.  We bundled up Snuggles in fleece, footed PJs, and set up his pack-n-play right next to the fireplace.  We knew he would stay plenty warm there.  Guitarman offered to sleep on the couch to watch over Snuggles while I slept in our bed.

We went to bed early around 9 p.m.  (What else can you do when it's dark in your house and you're freezing cold?)  I piled a bunch of blankets on my bed and tried to go to sleep...

Have you ever tried to sleep in complete silence?  It's deafening.

I usually sleep with a fan on.  But last night I lay wide awake in bed listening to the complete silence... All I could hear was Snuggles coughing downstairs... and coughing... and coughing.

I gave up on trying to sleep.  I picked up my cell phone, got on Facebook, and posted: "Playing 'Little House on the Prairie' is getting old.  I'd like my power back, please."

I must have fallen asleep because I awoke at 2 a.m. when the light beside my bed came on.  YAY!  The power came on just in time because the house was freezing cold!  It took me awhile to go back to sleep because it was butt cold my toes were numb and my teeth were chattering.

Snuggles was cozy warm beside the fireplace all night. I found him this morning, still sound alseep in his pack-n-play, and snoring loudly.  (Guitarman had turned the fireplace off after the heat came back on.)

You can't see it in the picture below, but Snuggles' left leg
is curled up underneath him.

I don't know how this could possibly be comfortable... He's quite the contortionist.

Pickin' and Grinnin'

Bye Bye Binkie

Pacifier... binkie... or my personal favorite, the plug.  (Because it plugs the screaming hole.)  Whatever you call it, this amazing invention improves parental quality of life immeasurably.... that is until it's time to get rid of it.

Several weeks ago we decided it was time to bid the binkie farewell.  We started by only letting Snuggles have the plug when it was time for him to sleep.  Thankfully, he did pretty well with that most of the time.  He cried when we took the plug from him after he woke up, but he was easily pacified with one of his stuffed animals. 

Last week, we started putting him to bed for naps without the plug, and I'm happy to announce, Snuggles made it through the weekend plug-free!  Bye, bye binkie!

We went to the mall on Saturday and took Snuggles to the Build-a-Bear Workshop.  I had no idea Snuggles would respond the way he did.  As we rolled the stroller into the store, his entire face lit up,  he squealed with excitement and clapped his hands.  It was so cute!  Everyone in the store (and even passers-by) stopped to watch Snuggles.  Here he is after he picked out his Puppy.

Snuggles traded the plug for Puppy.  Good trade.  Now if we could just get him to drink milk from a sippy cup instead of a bottle....

14 Months Old

Snuggles is 14 months old this week. It's hard to believe!  This is a very fun age because Snuggles is starting to become more interactive.  He is really into repetitive activities.  For example, he likes zipping zippers up and down, stacking blocks, knocking them over, and stacking them again, and putting caps/lids on and off.  Another fixation he has right now is he likes putting things on his head and taking them off again. He puts Mama's headband on his head, he puts blankets on his head, he puts books on his head. You name it, he puts it on his head.

 Snuggles likes to wear hats, just like Daddy.

He likes to listen to music with Daddy's headphones.

Snuggles still doesn't walk independently, but he crawls really fast.  He also "cruises" around furniture and stands for brief periods by himself.  He occassionally walks behind a walker toy, but he just doesn't seem to be in a hurry to walk.  We're okay with that.  He's enough of a handful without walking.  Snuggles recently learned how to climb stairs (and he loves it!), but of course he hasn't figured out how to come down safely.  So we have to be really careful with him around stairs.

This video shows how fast Snuggles gets around crawling.  No wonder he's not in a hurry to walk!

Snuggles doesn't say many words intentionally, except "Uh oh" and "Uck uck" (for duck).  As a result, my favorite development with Snuggles is I no longer have to read his mind all the time.  Snuggles is learning to communicate with American Sign Language (ASL).  His babysitter has been working with Guitarman and me to teach Snuggles how to communicate what he wants using signs.  As we teach Snuggles the signs, we alway repeat the word over and over so Snuggles learns to speak the words as well as sign.  He doesn't sign all of the words consistently, but he responds appropriately when we use them. Here are some of the signs Snuggles uses:

• Eat
• More
• Bye-bye
• Milk
• Thank you
• Cracker

We're working on teaching him to sign:

• No
• Yes
• Drink
• Mama
• Daddy
• Blanket
• Bath
• Ball
• Play

He's a lot of work, but he sure is loads of fun!

Snuggles is changing so quickly that it's difficult to keep track of all the "new" things he does.  Just this week Snuggles learned how to blow kisses, and he is learning to play the "body part" game.  We ask him "Where's your tummy?" and he pats his tummy.  It's really cute.  Unfortunately, he thinks we need to show him our tummies, too.  So he pulls up our shirts to look at our tummies.  It's cute when we're at home, but not so much in public.  Last night, when he was in the nursery at church, Snuggles pulled up the volunteer's shirt.  We need to work on that before he gets us arrested.

"I wonder what his voice will sound like?"

The conversation in our car during Thursday's commute went something like this...

Me (handing stuffed animal [duck] to Snuggles):  What does the duck say? *Quack quack*

Snuggles: "uck... uck.."

*Laughter*

Me: Snuggles, are you saying "duck"? Or are you saying "Quack quack quack?"

Snuggles: "uck...uck...uck"

*Laughter*

Me: Sounds like a mixture of "duck" and "quack".

Guitarman: It will be so fun when he starts talking. I wonder what his little voice will sound like?

Me: Hmm.... I don't know, but I'm sure it will be cute.

Guitarman: I just think it will be fun when he can talk to me from the backseat.

Me: I'm going to remind you you said that in a few years, when you're irritated because Snuggles has just asked you "Why?" for the thousandth time.

*Laughter*

Less than an hour later, we were sitting at Chili's eating dinner.  (It was Guitarman's night to cook dinner, so naturally we went out to eat.)  As Guitarman and I scrambled to keep Snuggles occupied --through tag-team-feeding--Snuggles had accumulated a sizeable pile of crushed/mushed goldfish crackers on the floor, ate more than half of my chicken crispers, wiggled out of the highchair harness, pulled off his socks, smeared cinnamon apples in his hair and launched into a Level 3 meltdown.  Guitarman looked at me and said, "Remember when he used to just lay in his carseat and sleep while we ate dinner?"

My Life Is in Your Hands

Yesterday I joined the church choir at TCC. 

I've been involved in choirs since I was a child.  Some of my best memories of my teen years, college and even adult life revolve around my involvement in worship arts ministries.  In fact, Guitarman and I met at worship team rehearsal!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to participate in church choir or worship teams while we lived in Idaho.  I desperately missed it.  I didn't just miss the singing.  After all, I sang on a weekly basis in worship services with the kids and with adults.  I don't need to be on stage or holding a microphone to praise God.  What I missed more than the singing was the community.

Choir rehearsals foster relationships.  Singers spend a lot of time together preparing for Sunday morning services and special events.  We bond as we share our victories and challenges with one another.  Church choirs pray together, they laugh together, they share their lives.  For me, church choir isn't just about making music.  It's about being the Body of Christ.... experiencing community.  That's what I have missed these past four years. 

As we began choir rehearsal last night, my heart joined my face in smiling as I experienced the comraderie in the room.  I overheard excited conversation between friends who had been apart during the holidays.  I saw handshakes, hugs, laughter and even tears shared with a member who was hurting.  I breathed a prayer of "thanks" to God for restoring my spirit.  And then He spoke to me through a song...

The song is called "My Life Is in Your Hands".  It was written for and originally recorded by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.



God gave me this song in the Spring of 2002.  I sang it for the first time with the Shawnee Church Choir, whose members remain precious to me.  Guitarman and I had only been married a few months when he was unexpectedly laid off from his job.  The situation surrounding his layoff was handled poorly.  We felt betrayed and lost.  I arrived at choir rehearsal one evening discouraged and stressed.  That's when the worship pastor introduced this song.  I couldn't hold back the tears as I sang the words my heart desperately needed to believe:

Oh I know that I can make it.  
I know that I can stand.
No matter what may come my way,
my life is in Your hands.

As the TCC choir sang last night, the lyrics soaked into my heart like the first time.  I felt the emotions all over again as I did nine years ago.  In my spirit, I sensed God saying, "See, I give you the desires of your heart."  (Psalm 37:4).  Once again, the Lord used this song to teach me...  My life is in his hands.