Poop on a Plane

The story that must kick off this blog is the Poop on a Plane story. I've referred in previous posts to Lincoln's ability to be inconvenient. For instance, when he should have been napping during the afternoon in Phoenix he was crying, so Jenn and I took him on a drive. Rather than going to sleep, he talked to himself for most of the drive, then fell asleep when we pulled into Grandfather Dave's neighborhood. How convenient. So on the plane from Phoenix to Chicago, Lincoln had his own seat. He didn't travel the greatest, but he wasn't too bad. Having his own seat gave us plenty of space to move him around.

But... on the plane from Chicago to Cleveland he didn't have his own seat. Further, we were sitting by a guy that wasn't the most friendly. So Jenn was holding Lincoln on her lap, and right in the middle of the ascent she looked at me and said, "I think he pooped." She extended her hand to me, asking me to smell her sleeve. He had pooped. We couldn't go to the bathroom because the seatbelt light was still lit. We had to wait it out.

It stunk. Bad.

Then she moved Lincoln and saw that there were large poop marks on her shirt. Holy cow. So we proceeded to change his diaper right there on Jenn's lap. The flight attendant had to bring us a Blackberry-Smelling-Spray to make the area smell better. Poop was everywhere (we had fed him acorn squash, bananas & rice cereal the previous week), and it was definitely taking on the form of a baby-eating-solids poop. That's a time we'll never forget. Now, moving on to more pleasant things...

I've mentioned Lincoln's Exersaucer in previous posts. He loves it. In fact, when we arrived back home from Phoenix, he was thrilled to be back in it. When he first stood in it his toes barely touched the bottom. Now, it won't be much longer until we have to raise the level on it so he's not too tall for it.

"I must put one in my mouth, which one should it be?"

"I'm not sure about the orange one."

"But the green one... hmmm."

"I can't decide!"

"I'll let you know when I've made up my mind."

But enough of that fun. Can you tell we like to take pictures of him? Lincoln's actually been enjoying watching us review the pictures on the MacBook. It's not as if he knows what he's looking at, but he'll figure it out.

Last evening Jenn and I drove down to The Pines Golf Club for the Kretow reception. Both the Crafts and the Kretows were wonderful hosts and they put on a great party. The biggest surprise of the evening was up on the big screen. Before 8:00pm there was a slide show playing of the wedding, then after 8:00 they showed the OSU/Penn St. game (what a downer). But in the middle of the first quarter, the game was turned off, and up on the screen came Eric Craft, Elise's brother who is stationed in Kandahar, Afgahanistan.

Michelle Wisecup & Elise Kretow with the bloggers

Friends of the Crafts arranged to hook up with him via satellite over the internet. And it was actually Eric's birthday, so everyone at the reception sang Happy Birthday to him. Wow. It was really neat.  (Please take a moment now and pray for Eric, that God will protect him, keep him safe at his job, and return him safely home.  Thank you.)

Also at the reception was the Wisecup family. Michelle was a classmate of ours at Ohio State (and the shortstop on our Championship Softball team). She and her husband, Chris, have a son named Grady who is 5 weeks older than Lincoln. What a cutie. It was amazing to see the types of things that Grady was doing and knowing that Lincoln will be at that stage in just a few weeks. Grady loves to walk with assistance. He doesn't like to crawl, just walk. Given Lincoln's anti-fondness to all things belly-side-down, he just may shun crawling in favor of walking, too.  And Chris and Michelle seem to be doing well, too!

Home life is going well, too. Lincoln is consistently going to bed by 7:30-7:45pm which gives Jenn and I good time to spend with each other. Jenn's been cooking some wonderful dishes for us lately and that's been fun, as well.

I've referred to our Community Group in the past that Jenn and I really have enjoyed. This is in a state of limbo right now, though. Hudson Chapel has been moving forward with expansion plans, and this includes planting a church south of Hudson in the Stow/Kent area. They've been recruiting members to be a part of that plant, and 6 of the 10 in our original Community Group have decided to move. That leaves us and our good friends, Shaun and Jessica Kiel, behind at Hudson. Plans are underway now to find other left-behind folks and new folks to start up a new CG. This has been both frustrating and somewhat exciting at the same time... tough to put into writing.

Things are definitely cooling off here and looking like a legitimate autumn. It's a time that the Gates family enjoys.  Thanks to all who have recently left comments on the blog. We love hearing from you. And thanks for visiting our blog. There are lots of ways for you to spend your time during the day, and we're appreciative that you're interested in how things are going with the Gateses.