So I remained calm and went through the steps that gmail has to restore your password. It’s a long questionnaire that I didn’t know the answers to most. I quickly breezed through it thinking it was just a formality. Imagine my surprise when a day later I received an email from gmail saying they could not restore my account because I did not have adequate proof that I was who I said I was.

It’s hard to prove you are someone online. It’s not like you can flash a passport or other form of picture id.

So after 4 more attempts at the questionnaire – and some digging to find the answers to questions I didn’t know – my email account was restored. But it left me with a new caution about life online that I’d love to share with you. Here are some of my tips – and ones I found while searching online for help.

1. Don’t use the same email for EVERYTHING! I have five different emails that come to my mailbox on my mac, but I was used to using my gmail for everything so I wouldn’t forget. It’s worth the effort to use different emails to log in to the different places. Make a physical list somewhere if you have to – which I do – and keep it in a safe place.

2. Don’t use the same password for EVERYTHING! This is probably a no-brainer but I was totally guilty of it! I’m a mom, I’m busy, I have limited brain space and passwords are not on my priority list, so why not use the same one everywhere, was my reasoning. Now I do the same as with number 1 – physical list.

3. If you have a gmail account, take time to write out the answers to these questions. I don’t know if it works the same with hotmail or any other online email, but I would imagine it might. These are the answers to the questions asked on the gmail questionnaire: (This list came from Digital Inspiration blog.)

• The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account. You can look at the last page of your Gmail Inbox (or go to Sent Items) to get an approximate idea of the date when you created the account.
• If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail.
• The email addresses of your most frequently emailed contacts (the top 5).
• The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account.
• The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you’re not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate. I looked at the first date of photos I had uploaded to picasa and my first post in blogger.
  

4. Read privacy settings on social networking sites like facebook and twitter. Please be extra careful and diligent if you have pre-teens or teenagers online. Take time with them to read through those settings and choose the ones you are most comfortable with.

I just want to encourage everyone to be careful and take precautions. I’m not really sure what these people wanted with my account. The only activity I could find was some crazy gibberish on one of my old blogs. Which is weird, because they are free anyway.

I’m sure there are lots of more tips and I’d love to hear some of yours in the comment section.

And I’m sharing it with you just in time! Hope you can jump on board and be a part of this intentional period of growth. You can read all about it here at her blog. She’s beginning this thing for the month of October called Mom-iversity. The best thing about it is that YOU plan out what you are going to study, how you will do it and how much time it will take. She supplies the accountability and community to grow and learn from each other. What a great idea!

I looked through her list of resources – and there’s no rule that you HAVE to do something from her list – but one of the books I’ve been trying to get through was on there – Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. So here’s my motivation plus I get to share nuggets with new friends online! Yea!

So in the past four months, much has happened in my life… and you’ll see more about it on the blog. The biggest thing is that we launched the church we’ve been planning and preparing for. On August 8th, The Life Church of Durban started! We are training up leaders, building the service teams and inviting everyone we can to come check us out. This being our first year, we’re learning the ebbs and flows of holidays and school breaks and how they affect attendance to church on Sunday. It’s a great learning time and we are enjoying every bit of it!

We are also thrilled that we have another baby on the way! Isaiah is 10 months old and will be 16 months when baby #2 is born in March!

This has been tested as he’s learning to sit up on his own and reach for toys. His balance is not so good yet, so sometimes he falls flat on his face, literally.  Most times I try to sit right by him and steady him as he wobbly stretches to get something of interest, but occasionally he verves off in a new direction and falls.  The first time it happened, I gasped – and of course he cried. Now I bite my tongue, help him up and try to look happy.

Yet another thing I’m learning since being a parent – how to control my reactions. How often have my reactions made situations much worse than they really are? Over-reacting to things people say just makes me miserable. Emotionally responding to difficult situations does not help anything. Crying, venting or just getting angry at things we can’t control just adds stress to our lives.

Just before he toppled - do you see the lean towards the right?

So, not saying I’ve learned this, but my little boy is giving me some good practice at controlling those reactions.

Gazing lovingly up at his daddy

I absolutely LOVE being a mommy! God has been so good to us and given us the desires of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4)

I had a wonderful day – went to church (where they gave out chocolate to the moms, always a good thing!), lunch, stroll around the mall and relax with my family. My gift was a beautiful glass pandora bead addition to my charm bracelet. Just beautiful!

The good part of it was that my sister came over to help me with Isaiah. It was an unexpected trip and a nice treat for her to see Isaiah at this fun stage of development (5 months). Our home church sent her (they take such good care of us!) and it was a huge help! I could be at the hospital with Greg and have no worries since Isaiah was in such good hands! And he took to her right away. He saw her when he was just a month old, but of course could not remember that. We do look alike, so I joked the first day when I came home from the hospital that he realized – “wait, there are two mommies!”

Aunt Sonja and Isaiah

So now both Greg and I have experienced hospitalization in South Africa (me when I gave birth to Isaiah). The crazy thing is neither of us have anything to compare it to since we were never in the hospital in the States (unless you count tonsils removed when I was little, but I don’t remember it).

One thing that is different is the strict visiting hours. In the States, at least where we live, spouses could even spend the night if they wanted to. Here, I had two hours (at different times) I could see Greg. The first night when I stayed just a couple minutes pass the end of the visiting hour, the nurse asked if I was going to stay and nurse him all night. I said, “Sure.” She was kidding. I wasn’t.

Out to eat with my sis the last night she was here

He’s back home now with a big cut along his neck that is healing up nicely. One more week of (almost) total rest, then he can go back to a little more activity. It’s been an interesting season. Since February, Greg’s been battling something – first severe tonsillitis (three rounds of antibiotics to kick it!) then the back injury. We are declaring health and healing in our house! Thank you God for seeing us through!

Isaiah and I on the beach in Sea Park, South Africa

We had a little holiday – although we worked it out that it didn’t fall on a public holiday so we could get the off season rate. It was our first purely rest and relaxation getaway since we’ve arrived in Africa – a year and half ago! We’ve done a little traveling but it was always built around ministry opportunities.

It seems like little getaways – or holidays as they call it here – are very important to South Africans. Our friends are always “going on holiday” somewhere or another, even if it’s just for a weekend or so. It’s a part of the culture I love – slow down and enjoy life a bit. We Americans could definitely learn something about that!

Check out our other blog (www.gregandkristinevans.com) for pictures from our holiday getaway. It was a great time!

Just after Isaiah was born!

My overseas birth story is featured over on Missionary Moms blog. She’s doing a series about people who have given birth while overseas – it’s really fun to read the different stories. I feel like I cheated – mine was so easy especially since English is an official language over here.

(One of 11 official languages! Actually I’ve heard rumors that at one of the hospitals in the same group as the one I went to, the nurses will only speak Zulu to you. Don’t know if it’s true or not, but my hospital was all in English.)

For some reason I didn’t include a pic when I sent my story over, so I put one up here. I was not one of those ladies who you say, “Oh she doesn’t even look like she just gave birth.”I look tired because I was! It was about 1 am when this pic was taken and my hair was in a rat’s nest. But I had the most beautiful little boy!

That was almost five months ago… here he is today – my little chunk of love!

I think my favorite part of this series of posts is inserting a cute pic of my little one! I just can’t get enough of him!! I mean, I see him all day long but then at night I can very often be found perusing pictures of him in iphoto. What is wrong with me? Nothing. I’m a mother.

I think God looks down on us like this. He loves us so much, He can’t get enough of us. The Bible says in Zephaniah (3:17) that He takes great delight in us; rejoices over us with singing; He quiets us with His love. I love that God has given us the family to understand more of His love.

He loves us through all our spiritual growth and development. He lovingly calls to take steps out into the unknown while trusting Him – just like Jesus calling Peter to step out onto the water – and just like babies learning to walk. Have you ever noticed that babies walk better when they keep their eyes on mom and dad? When they look down, they fall.

He even uses the parent-child relationship to describe Jesus – His only son – so we could understand the intense sacrifice He gave for us. I’ve heard people say they understood more the depth of what God did for us by sending Jesus once they themselves had a son. It’s true. It’s unimaginable what God did for us so we could come back to relationship with Him. Thank you God!

What is God teaching you through parenthood or the children in your life?

I’m learning

At one of our well-baby visits, our doctor  casually mentioned that my little boy’s rosy cheeks had a touch of eczema on them. Since then, the eczema started spreading and I was searching online to find something to control this extremely dry skin. I found out that I could use Aquaphor Healing Ointment on it. I happened to have some, tried it and immediately saw a huge improvement!

Then I started thinking of all the uses for Aquaphor – I promise this is not a paid advertisement, I just really love this stuff! If you haven’t tried this stuff, it’s a water-based petroleum – think Vaseline without the stickiness. So incredible. Here are some of the uses we have for it:

1. Chapped lips soother

2. Controlling eczema on babies

3. Diaper rash

4. Dry nose -  you know, like when you have a serious cold and your nose is sensitive. Rub just a bit inside each nostril and squeeze your nose.

5. Dry anything on long-haul flights – airplane air really dries your skin. A tiny tube of this helps with those dry patches.

6. Protect scraps and small cuts

7. Neck rash on babies

8. Protect your face in extreme cold weather

9. Slide rings on or off swollen pregnant fingers

10. Any rash or irritated skin

I’m sure there are lots more! I really love all the uses I get for Aquaphor Healing Ointment except I don’t like that I run out too quickly. That’s a big problem since it’s not available to purchase here in South Africa so I have to import it myself from the States.

The new list of things to bring from the States that we can’t live without: Nestle chocolate chips, Tony’s cajun seasoning, and Aquaphor.

That’s what works for me!