Space... the final frontier

I am watching Shane Kimbrough space walk. Shane is a member of our church, and friends with Jason. I didn't meet him until his launch party at church, but he's a really neat guy. That's why Jason and Cooper were in Florida, they got VIP seats for the launch, really great opportunity. I could have gone too, but we couldn't afford to fly, and I couldn't see us driving with a three month old all the way to FL. We did give Shane an Addison Road CD to take with him to space. They are really excited about that.

When we were moving to Clear Lake, and were told that probably 1/3 of our church works at NASA, I was concerned a little. Up until that point I was kind of against space travel, not really against it, but thinking of all the things we could be spending that money on, like the homeless. But now that we are immersed in the culture, I think its the coolest thing. I think Shane is the 5th astronaut from our church since we've been here to go up, and each time our pastor leads a prayer for them and talks about exploring God's creation. So many people in our church have jobs that just blow my mind. Mark, one of our Sunday School teachers, has the job of keeping track of all of the things floating in space, like every nut, bolt, and now tool bag, star, etc. floating out there. Our other teacher, David, his job is to work on the space suits. Jonathan works on the exercise equipment that is taken to the space station. And I hear all the time about things that we now use in our lives down on earth, that wouldn't have been possible without NASA. And when you see pictures of all that is out there, all of God's creation, we realize how little we are and how BIG God is. I got to watch live the other day the astronauts arriving at the space station, and giving hugs to the guys living in the space station. It gave me chills! And now I'm watching the space station circling the earth, it goes around the whole earth every 92 minutes. The earth is beautiful. Why did God make the whole solar system and more? Is there life in other places? I don't know. Maybe it was just to give us something to do with our lives, to keep us from getting bored. Or maybe it is so we can really grasp His greatness.

"Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you." Nehemiah 9:5,6

I am really mad...

This morning I came downstairs to find that Cade had accidentally bought a pay-per-view movie in his attempt to watch Thomas the Train. I called to try to get it cancelled, but they wouldn't. So, he bought "Baby Momma" which I one point I had wanted to see, so I thought I would watch it tonight after the boys were in bed. This is a really stupid movie! I am really mad we wasted $5 on it. And I'm really mad that Comcast wouldn't take it off.

Baby Poop Stains!

I have struggled with three kids trying to get out baby poop stains, you know, the bright yellow stuff that explodes out the top, bottom and sides of the diapers, even the good diapers. Yes, if you just wash the item immediately, there is usually not an issue. But please, who can wash the stuff immediately. So I have been washing this one outfit over and over with stain stick trying to get out the poop. It is a really cute outfit my mom bought for Campbell, and so I wanted to pass it on to my sister-in-law in a few months, but I can't with a baby poop stain on it. So with the great invention of the internet, I searched baby poop stains, and found the answer... the sun! I thought it surely wouldn't work, but oh my goodness. All you do is wash the outfit with a stain remover, but before drying it, lay it out in the sun. And the stain magically disappears! Apparently, the yellow in the poop is the billirubin, so just like a baby with jaundice, the sun takes it away! I tried it today with four outfits, and three of them came out perfect. Amazing! The other one, the stain is now very light brown, if you weren't looking, you probably wouldn't be able to find it, but I'm going to try again tomorrow. I used the Spray-n-Wash stain stick, but apparently, the Dreft stain remover might work better. Why didn't I learn this 7 years ago!!! God's free stain remover!

Observations of a non-political person

My person lost, but I'm over it, for a number of reasons. One, because what good does it do to be upset, it doesn't change anything. Two, I realized a lot of things people blamed on Bush weren't his fault, no one person can make all the mistakes people said he made by himself, therefore, Obama can't do all the things people say he will do by himself. Three, and most importantly, because God is in control and has a bigger picture than I can see. He already knew the outcome. Jason and I were discussing last night people's reactions as we watched Obama's speech (really good I thought). Jesse Jackson and Oprah crying made us roll our eyes. But then you see like a quarter of a million people cheering and crying and just the fact that they stood out there to hear him speak for 10 minutes was crazy to us. I said that I couldn't imagine being that supportive of anyone to show that much emotion about them winning. Jason asked why they were all there. Why were they all so emotional. We get that its a big deal that he's the first black President, but I don't think people in our generation, or white people in general, can really get the significance of it. But I also told Jason that these people have put so much hope into him and what he can accomplish. They are suffering and most of them can only put hope into this man, who is only human. We don't put hope in people. We know that only God is big enough to handle our suffering, our complaining, our issues, and that He is the only one we should put our hope in.
Jason is driving to Dallas tonight to attend the Memorial service for Sweet Hopkins, the Children's Minister at FBC Richardson, where we moved from. She passed away this week from cancer. All of this uncertainty about the future of our country at the same time of her death made me realize that all I can really control is the present, what I can do today to make a difference in this world, especially in the life of a child. They are our future. I can help my three boys grow up into Godly men with values, knowing the difference between good and bad, helping them find their talents and gifts, and teaching them how to treat people with respect and kindness. I can also teach that to other children, just like Sweet did, and that will truly make a difference in the world. I can do my part and let God do the rest, and put my hope in that!

Politics of a 6 year old

We were eating dinner, watching the election results. Cooper was watching intently, waiting for them to announce the winner. We had to explain we won't know until after he goes to bed, or maybe way longer than that. So then we got into a discussion about our newest favorite thing in the Gadman house, Star Wars: the Clone Wars. And Cooper made the most astute comment. Obama looks like Chewbaca because he's brown and McCain looks like Yoda because he's old. We had to laugh and I had to post. Enjoy.

You get what you pay for...

Except for a package of diapers I bought while we were gone evacuating, I haven't had to buy diapers until this week. But it hit at the time of the month when we don't have a lot of extra money, so I took my coupons to the grocery store to see what kind of deal I could get. Even with the coupons, the store brand of diapers was cheaper. The package looked so nice with quotes on it from moms about how great the diapers were. So I bought them instead of the name brands. And I learned again that you get what you pay for. Campbell's leaked on two outfits since yesterday. I have realized there are some things you can get by with buying the cheap store brand. But there are some things you should spend the few extra cents (or dollars when it comes to diapers) to get the better quality. Like speghetti sauce. I only buy Prego Organic. I have tried the cheaper brands but they just aren't as good. So I will go back to spending a little extra for Pampers or Huggies. My first two boys really only wore Huggies, but someone bought us Pampers this time, and I really like them. Back to cutting coupons!

My observations of facebook...

Ok, first of all, I am addicted to facebook. Its ridiculous! I walk by the computer, and it calls to me, "Come see who added you as a friend. Come see what random people were thinking 5 minutes ago!" and I have to stop and sit down and look. So silly. But it cracks me up this whole friendship thing. I see a friend that I know and I think, I know there are people we both know, so I look at their friendship list and find at least one person to connect with. But I have to say, I see lots of people that I have known at one time in my life, but I think, if I asked them to be my friend, they would think I was weird because we really weren't friends. But apparently other people do not have that filter because I have gotten requests from people that I honestly do not know. I looked a few up in my college yearbook and there they were, so I confirm their friendship because I'm too nice not to. Jason said he denies people all the time. I asked him if they get a message that he denied them, and he said he doesn't care, that's the point. But I'm too nice. But last night, I actually deleted three people that I honestly don't know. It said they don't notify them, which is good. And then I had a horrible thought. I am waiting on about 20 people to confirm my friendship, and what if they don't want to be friends with me, and they denied me and I just don't know it??!!! Is that possible? Do people really not want to be my friend? Were there people who accepted me, but they were too nice to say no, and deleted me later? Jason said a lot of people just try to get as many friends as possible. At first I thought that was ridiculous, but I have to say, I am proud of myself as my friend count goes up. Just what I need is another avenue of testing my low-self esteem.

Well, I did it.

I joined facebook. I have a friend who moved to Singapore and joined facebook and asked me to, so I did. And within two hours I had so many people who found me. Crazy. People who have had my email address for years, but suddenly on facebook they can chat. I didn't realize how behind the times I was. I thought I was all with it since I had a blog, but apparently not. Its kind of fun I must say to see so many people I haven't seen in years. Grant it, its a 1 by 2 inch picture, and most of them aren't good, I hope. I don't want to post one of myself, because I'm sure it won't look good either. And since I am still way behind the times at home with dial up, I'll have to find time to go to Jason's office to post a picture. Just what I need is another way to waste my time! I kind of feel like I'm cheating on my blog.

Things here are fine. Busy week. Jason was out of town and my mom was here. Then we had a family conference at church this weekend, so a good friend of ours came in to teach at it. So my house is really clean. Campbell is doing great. The easiest baby of the three, knock on wood. I started working in childcare last week. Tuesdays are bad, but Wednesdays are fine. I'll go into that another time. I just keep telling myself, "this is for Cade." I'm only working to pay his tuition for preschool. Of course its selfish too, that's two 10 hours a week he's out of my hair.

Happy Birthday Campbell!

Today Campbell is 2 months old! How did that happen?! So I took him to the doctor for his check up, which was an adventure. I have thought the last two years since we have been using this doctor that they needed to redo their offices, and Hurricane Ike pushed them into it. Apparently, they had a lot of damage, so they had to move to a temporary location for 4-6 months while their offices are getting redone. Well, this temporary office was soooo tiny. And there are 4 doctors in the practice, it was a mad house! People walking all over each other. Anyway, it wasn't fun. But he looks great. Weighs 12 lbs 7 oz, 75 percentile. Then we got the dreaded shots, 3 shots and an oral vaccine. I had been thinking for awhile about the vaccines, I have heard so much in the media about the link between them and autism, etc. My mom is getting her doctorate in natural medicine, and really didn't want me to get them (from my translation of comments she had made.) But after the storm, Dr. Dave the pediatrician, ironically enough a good friend of my parents, stayed at our house one night while working on his beach house in Galveston. And I asked him about vaccines. He made me feel so much better. He said that the committee who decides the schedule is pediatricians, not pharmaceutical companies, so they only want whats best for the children. And yes, you can spread them out, but that only makes the child have more painful visits, and opens them up to get the disease while they are waiting for the vaccine. He said there are no studies that prove the link between vaccines and autism, but its one of those things you really can't prove cause and effect. But the best thing he said, that really made me feel better, was that there are risks, but there are risks in everything. Children die in car accidents because they are trapped in their car seats, but are we not going to use car seats because of that risk? Of course not. The benefits far out weigh the risks. So he got his shots today. And yes, he is grumpy. But he won't remember it. He's already forgotten I'm sure.

The trucks came through today and picked up most of our debris in our neighborhood, and all of our traffic lights are working now. Things are getting back to normal. We are waiting for our insurance to tell us how much money we get for repairs, probably a new roof.

OH YEAH! Campbell is celebrating his two month birthday by sleeping through the night! The past three nights he has gone 7-8 hours at night! Yippee!

Cereal

I realized last night at 4 am when I was nursing, that Cooper had a bowl of cereal before he went to bed. "So what?" you might be saying. Well, if memory serves me right, that was his first bowl of cereal, and yes, he's six. We found out about his extensive food allergies when he was 14 months old, and at the time, he was allergic to every grain except the strange ones you can only get at health food stores, and at the time, they didn't make kid cereals out of the strange grains he could eat. So no cereal. I remember giving him a bowl of cereal when he was two, and I can remember the look on his face, as if to say to me, "why Mommy, would you ruin perfectly good milk by pouring on that stuff, and expecting me to eat it?" So no cereal. Then Cade was born who has no food allergies (how does that happen) and when he started eating cheerios like all good babies do, Cooper would gag at the smell of them and tell me to get them away from him. Cade starting eating bowls of cereal with milk when he was old enough, for a few months, and then he realized big brother wasn't eating it, and that was the end of that. He loves dry cereal, but not in a bowl with milk. Well, I have gotten really into eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, because its lower on sugar than most sweet cereals and its made with wheat, not oat or corn which I am allergic to. And Cooper decided he likes it, and last night when he got home from baseball and soccer practice, asked me for a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with milk, and scarfed it down. And it didn't dawn on me until 4 in the morning, that I think that was his first bowl of cereal with milk. A major milestone!

Picks of the week... FOOD

Stouffers Express Lasagna, the great tasting lasagna that has really good ingredients for a processed food, cooked in the microwave in 17 1/2 minutes. Fabulous.

Mom's Best Natural Cereals... I bought a box at Walmart last week. Its the basic cereal flavers we eat, I got frosted mini wheats, but made with natural ingredients. No matter what the corn refiners association commercials are saying, corn syrup is not a natural ingredient in my family's diet.

I miss being pregnant...

I miss being pregnant. Not the throwing up, getting kicked in the ribs, not being able to sleep on my stomach, being exhausted parts, but the other parts. I miss that feeling that I had that I was the sole carrier of some huge big secret, that no one else had a part of, that I was carrying an angel. I miss that feeling of anticipation where I wondered what he would look like. I selfishly miss the attention I got when I was pregnant. When I had the baby, people no longer look at me, they look at the baby, which is fine, because I feel ugly. No matter how big I was when I was pregnant, and how much I complained about being big, I secretly felt cute and pretty and special. Don't get me wrong, I love and adore Campbell and he is so precious, and I have no regrets at all. And don't get me wrong, we are done. But there is that sad part of me that its over. I gave most of my maternity clothes away today, minus a few shirts I am still wearing. And as happy as I was to pass them on to my dear friend who needs them more than I do, when she asked if I needed them back, and I said no, I had a sad moment. But I can look in Campbell's beautiful eyes and be thankful that I am holding my angel in my arms.

Two more observations...

11. How many people did not take driver's ed. Most of our traffic lights are either blinking red, or not there at all, and people are trying their best to take turns, but it gets a little dicey.
12. The Texas Baptist Men's Disaster Response team whose travel trailers are in our church parking lot. These men, and their wives, travel all over the country from one storm to the next just cleaning up people's homes, mostly the mud out of homes that flooded. They are amazing.

We figured out the water in our kitchen came from roof damage over our bay window, which was a relief because we thought it was plumbing issues.

Observations...

1. Piles and piles of yard debris in front of almost every house you pass by. The paper said the company they hired to pick it all up has 180 days to get it done. For you math majors, that's 6 months. I really don't want to look at it all or worry about the fire hazard for 6 months.
2. The small water spot on Campbell's ceiling, and the really big water spot above our kitchen table. We have a two story house. How is there a water spot on the bottom floor. Something bad is happening up there.
3. The Red Cross pod in our church parking lot, not passing out water or ice, but bleach, plastic containers to keep your stuff that didn't get wet, mops, brooms, rakes and shovels.
4. How much a street light helps when you go to get the mail at night. Its not there anymore, and its a little scary.
5. The school buses running again tomorrow. YEAH!
6. Campbell's first day in Sunday School today. I wasn't as emotional as I thought I might be. After I got the three kids here, I was ready to hand him off.
7. Campbell's cute smile. He and I had a chat a while back that I should get the first smile, since Daddy would probably get the first word. And I did. The Sunday before we evacuated, I got it, and I cried. No one believed me because he didn't smile at anyone else for awhile, but now he smiles a lot and I know I had the first one.
8. The calender flying by. How is Campbell already 7 weeks old!? When it was Cooper, I couldn't wait for him to grow up, but Campbell needs to just stop. It's very sad.
9. The crap all over my house, yes, CRAP. The FEMA lady came by this week to look around, and I had 5 minutes notice, and I was horrified as she walked around the house. Yes, I have good excuses, evacuating, kids at home, and a new baby, but most of it is just without excuse. I'm just lazy.
10. Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser, House, Survivor, Project Runway, Numbers, I think that's it. Those are my favorites, and three of them are on the same night. Hence, the crap around my house.

If I just focus on Campbell's smile, its all ok.

Update #3

School is out for a whole other week! But our church is using the opportunity to minister to the community by having Camp Ike, a day camp for school age children, and our preschool is starting back again. So I will go home Monday. The cool part is that our weekday director has to go out of town Tuesday night, and she asked me to direct for her while she's gone. She said she knew she could really relax while she was gone knowing I was there, and I was one of the only people she could really trust to take care of it. A huge compliment. I'm not bragging, but as adults there are really few times when people really try to give compliments. I try to catch my kids doing good things and comment on them to encourage them to do well, but as adults we really don't do that often with each other. Some people are better at it than others, but as a whole, we don't hear compliments like that often. All that to say, it made my day.

I forgot that while we were in Bryan, Coop lost his first tooth. Very exciting. I told him the tooth fairy would leave it for me to keep since it was the first. So the next night, he wanted to put it under the pillow again to she if she would leave another dollar. The sinful nature flaring up! Jason and I actually forgot to put money under his pillow, so we had to sneak it into his pillow case while he was looking all around his bed for the money. Very awkward but funny.

Another Update...

Tuesday we decided to make a change. Not that we weren't very comfy and cozy in Bryan, but when I realized that school was out for at least a week, it seemed like a good opportunity to go to Shreveport. Mom got power back on Monday night, so the boys and I left after lunch on Tuesday and came home to rest. Jason went back to Clear Lake and stayed that night with someone who did have power, and ours came back on Wednesday morning. Yeah! He got a better look at our damage. There is a roof leak because there is a water spot on Campbell's ceiling, and water came in our front door and did some damage to our floors in the entry way. Only a small part of our fence was down. Our trees didn't uproot, but he said the tops were sheered off, so we don't know if they will live or not. But we are very thankful. Our church's power came back on Monday I think, so each morning people are meeting and going out into the community to help with clean up. Jason said parts of town look like a bomb went off and parts don't look bad at all. School is probably starting back next Tuesday, which I am very thankful for. My kids are bouncing off the walls! We will probably go back on Saturday. Our church normally has three services, but we are only going to have one on Sunday, very casual and community building. We are hoping that people will come who wouldn't normally come and can be reached by a helping hand. I'll post some pictures some day, but I may have missed the worst of it. And that's ok.

Update...

We had a friend go back to Clear Lake and he went to all of our houses to check on them. He said out of the five houses on our cul-de-sac, ours was way the best. Just damage to our fence and probably our roof, both of which needed to be replaced anyway. But no windows out, no trees down, no flooding. Our neighbors lost most of their trees and some siding from what we hear. But no electricity, and because our school district covers so much area, we don't have school all next week at least. We are hoping that we get power back soon so we can go home, although I have no food in my house and there probably isn't any in the stores. But we are so very thankful that God kept our house safe. It could have been so much worse. I'm sure when we get back home we will hear lots of stories of people who didn't fare as well as we did. I am sure there will be many opportunities to help people, both physically and emotionally.

You can also pray for Jeff and Heather and their two boys. They are neighbors of Lee and Colette who also came with us. They just moved here from Michigan in July. They aren't believers, but after being with all of us for a few days, decided to go to church with us this morning. They said we all looked like the Waltons to them, but we just said it was Jesus. So we will see how that goes over the next few days. Thank you for the prayers as we wait for power to come back. My mom in Shreveport also lost power.

Pray for us...

In case anyone is checking on us, we are in Bryan/College Station. We left Wednesday night at 10:30 and are staying with our friend Lee's parents. Its us, Colette and Lee and their two kids, and Colette's brother Chris and his family. There are 8 kids under the age of 8. Yikes. Each family has a bedroom. When we left, we were thinking it was just to be safe in case the wind blew enough that we wouldn't have power for awhile. Now we are not sure what we will come back to. Its very scary. I realized there is a fine line between saying that you are trusting God and are not worried, and just being in denial about how serious the situation is. We are trying to stay calm so we don't freak the kids out, and trying to get them out of the house alot today since we'll be stuck the next day or two. God has taken care of us so far, gave us wisdom of when to leave (we had no traffic) and provided us a place to stay with wonderful friends. So we have to keep trusting Him. He is in control, and I know years from now we will remember this time hopefully fondly. We are all safe and everything else is just stuff. So besides praying for the Clear Lake area homes, pray for us in this house with 16 people! I'll keep you posted.

Big Weekend

Thursday night Campbell took his first bottle, sucked it down like nobody's business. Very exciting. It helped him sleep 4 hours! I remember with Cooper that he had a bottle at two weeks and then we didn't give him another one until he was 4 months and he wouldn't take it. Took trying for weeks before he would take another one. I don't think bottles were an issue for Cade. At the hospital with Campbell, the lactation nurse came in and explained to me that there is no reason for a baby to have a pacifier or bottle for the first month so they don't get confused. She even put a card in his bassinet that told the nurses not to give him a pacifier. I let her, and promptly preceded to give him the pacifier the first night home. He likes it, it helps him fall asleep, and both my other boys had a fine relationship with their pacifiers until they turned two, and they went bye-bye.

Saturday Cade had his very first soccer game, and as he said, "I am the best soccer player ever." Doesn't have a big head or anything. Of course, I spent the first quarter in the car nursing, and while in there, tried to start the van to get air, and the battery was dead, so I spent the last quarter in the parking lot with a very nice stranger jumping the van. Cade didn't seem to notice my absence.
Cooper then played his soccer game and later in the day, his first machine-pitch baseball game. Mom was more scared of the 42 mile an hour pitch than he was. Yes, we had three games in one day, and will from now until Nov. 8. Cooper has always played one sport at at time, but Cade has joined the sporting scene now, and Jason (and Cooper) really wanted Cooper to play fall baseball to get better since that appears to be his favorite and best sport. I told him I was not going to that many practices a week, so he agreed to be the head or assistant coach of all three teams so he would be at practice, and he is. So he scheduled the practices back to back, so two nights a week they are gone. Not so bad on my part, except the two weeks he'll be out of town later next month.

Sunday- Campbell's first Sunday at church! I really wasn't ready to come back yet. Most people are back the first week or two, but they have husbands to tote the carrier around all morning or hold the baby, and I don't. My husband leaves on Sunday mornings before we are even awake, and I usually don't see him until lunch. But Cooper was getting his 1st grade Bible, so we needed to go. I just knew that Campbell would sleep the whole time, but nope, first song, eyes popped open, and he preceded to fuss for a long time, no matter what I did. Jason even got up to do the opening for worship and I was hoping he would hear his voice and calm down, but I think it made it worse. So I had to go out in the hallway, leaving Cooper by himself in church, which terrified me. Luckily, our preschool director came by, and carried Campbell around for me until the service was over. That's one advantage of being a minister's wife, everyone is willing to help. Cooper is very proud of his Bible and we read the first chapter of Matthew last night (skimming over the genealogy). I hope he continues to have a desire to be in the Word.
Big weekend! I am tired!

Christy's Picks of the Week

Pick One... an Empty House

Last night was the first night, other than two random nights, that we didn't have any guests since Aug. 4. We had anywhere from one to five people here. It was odd, because as much as I appreciated the help (I now have a sink full of dirty dishes and loads of laundry to do), I really wanted my house back to myself. I am a hermit, and an introvert, and even though people tell you that you don't have to entertain them, I still felt rude staying in my room all day. The best was Jason's grandmother (there is no danger of her reading this) who lectured me on how to do laundry, and talked horribly about the people who come into her Walmart in Tulsa where she is a greeter, with newborn babies with no socks. I didn't tell her Campbell had already been to Walmart twice by the time she arrived. She also complained about another grandchild's spouse who stays in the bedroom the whole time she is there. So, even though I don't blame them and wanted to be in my bedroom, I didn't want her talking bad about me, or talking worse about me than she already does. I also had to hear more than once about a family in Tulsa who's baby was eaten by their dog. I really didn't want to hear that story the first time. Anyway, all that to say, I am so glad that my house is mine again, regardless of the dirty clothes and laundry!

Pick Two... Sid the Science Kid
It premiered today on PBS here, and it is the cutest, most educational show I have seen in a while. Check your local listings and check it out. You will love to watch it with your children, an oddity in the preschool television world, for me anyway.