Zach Dotsey

For some time now Amanda’s been able to feel a fluttering, ticklish feeling in her stomach that she’s pretty sure is baby movement.  Recently she said she could feel a weight in her stomach to the point that she feels it shift about when she turns over.  Amanda told me today that last night she felt an actual kick or lunch!  More on that in a sec.

I talked to my mom today.  I’d called her to tell her that we’d named the baby, but as it turns out she was about to call me to talk to me about my sister Erin Dotsey’s birthday, which is in a couple weeks.  While I was talking to her she mentioned that my dad was going to go to Lexington, Kentucky to visit my grandparents in a few weeks because his older brother, Tom Dotsey, was going at the same time.

She also took that time to update me on my grandparents.  Pap (Andy Dotsey) has been in and out of a nursing home.  His legs aren’t doing well and Baba (Jane Dotsey) isn’t best equipped to take care of him.  Aunt Terry moved back to Florida, Uncle Bernie has been there to help out some, but he lives several hours away, and Uncle Steve has helped as he can, but he can only do so much.  So Pap went to a nursing home, didn’t like it, came back and then went back to it.  That sucks.  I hate it for both him and Baba.

Erin called me a little bit after my mom did.  Mom had thought they were changing the date of the birthday celebration, but Erin called to tell me she was keeping it like it originally was.

Aside from those things, today featured the inauguration of Barack Obama and snow fell here in Wilmington.  After work Amanda and I watched a few DVRed shows then she went to the office to watch American Idol while I watched the much more important Duke game.  It was nice of her not to ask me to watch the game in the office, since we had both remarked how terrible games look on large TVs with a standard (non-HD) signal.

Duke was playing NC State, which should have been a pretty easy game.  Duke started off on a 10-1 run, but in that time they struggled to put even the most open of shots through the hoop.  The Wolfpack struggled with that too, but they started heating up before the Blue Devils did and ended up with a four point lead at the half.

Fortunately Gerald Henderson decided to take over the game in the second half and Duke finished on a 27-5 run.  they shot, I think, 21 or 29% in the first half and 76% in the second.  The final score was 73-56.  The game had been close only a few minutes before the end.

This Duke team seems to have a tendency to play up or down to their competition.  If they could just put to halves of a game together offensively they’re definitely going to make a splash in the tournament this year.  And if Gerald Henderson, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer can all three have just an average game at the same time, they’ll be scary.

Hats off to David McClure for this game too.  He played great defense and did all those intangible things that make him such a good but quiet player.  He even had a three pointer and a dunk this game!  Greg Paulus continued to show some return to form, hitting a few baskets to keep them in the game in the first, not to mention an uncharacteristic drive to the basket.

So, back to the kicking baby.  After the game Amanda felt a couple kicks while she was lying on the couch.  I put my hand on her stomach and eventually felt two kicks!  It was like someone was jabbing a finger from inside Amanda.  That was it, just a couple quick little jabs.  I told Amanda that Milly was excited because Duke had won.  I was elated to feel that though.  Amanda has been wishing she could share that with me.

I told Adam about the kicks later and he said, “Lil Milly’s milling about.”  I thought that was a cute phrase and told him I’d use it and give him credit for it.  He said I could take credit since I’m the dad, but I pointed out that he’s the uncle.

We put new sheets on the bed tonight.  Amanda’s parents gave us some new 1000 thread count sheets for Christmas and we decided tonight would be a good time to flip the mattress (well, turn it around anyway, since it’s a pillow-top) as well.  Those sheets feel so nice.  We’re spoiled.  I think all but one set of sheets we have for our bed are 1000 thread count.

Zach Dotsey
!

Last night we were told we’d be getting some snow, here in Wilmington, NC. I woke up this morning and looked out the window to find… no snow.  Amanda called this morning and said it was snowing over on the side of town where she works, but there was as of yet no snow by our house.  That changed maybe ten minutes later when a flurry of nice, fat snowflakes started to come down.  Best of all, it was sticking to the ground!

Bruce had been in the snow when he was a puppy, but Harvey had never seen it.  He didn’t care too much for it at first, but after a bit he started to sniff around in it.

In honor of the weather I took about half an hour to go walk around downtown and take some pictures.  The snow never really got very heavy and it didn’t stick to pavement, so I didn’t get an groundbreaking, newsworthy images of Wilmington covered in snow.

When I got home, our neighbors across the street, Charles and Deanna, were outside with their two little girls.  They have more trees in their yard and I guess the snow didn’t come down in a favorable direction for them, so Deanna asked if I’d mind if their girls came to play in our yard, which I thought was a fun idea.  There was more snow in the backyard so I let them all go back there too.  They made a tiny snowman on the picnic table.

The snow did lead to us canceling small group tonight.  Well, it wasn’t the snow so much as it was roads icing over.  I’m sure it will all be gone tomorrow (although the Triangle area got a lot more than we did so they may have it there for a few days), but it was fun to see while it lasted.  We had a small flurry a few weeks ago but nothing stuck at all, and this was the first time I saw snow covering the ground here.

Zach Dotsey

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, however you feel about his policies and ideas, you have to admire what the election of Barack Obama says about how far America has come.  Plenty of people have written about the significance of electing a black (okay, half-black, whatever- the point is that he’s not white) man to the highest post in the land, and they’ve done so far better than I ever will, so I’ll just post some pictures from today’s inauguration below.  I’m happy for my country and hopeful that our government and politics will indeed change.

The only thing that I think marred the day was the booing and jeering of President Bush when he made his appearance.  I get that he wasn’t popular, and I wasn’t happy with him myself, but I was really hoping the crowd would show some decorum, not sing “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye!”  Too much to ask for, I know.

Amanda’s mom, Karen Mercer, called her and asked if she was watching the inauguration.  Amanda told her she was at work and Karen told her it was an historic moment.  Amanda’s not big on history or historic moments, and she was working anyway, so it’s not like she could just ditch work to go camp out in front of a TV.  When Amanda told me all this she said she hopes Milly inherits my appreciation for history.

I was talking to Jason Revill about it too.  He said it was nice to have a positive historical moment for people our age.  Our parents had the Moon Landing.  All we’ve had are the Challenger Explosion and September 11th.  I would say President Obama’s inauguration was definitely a positive historical milestone for us.

One disturbing thing I read is that a tattoo parlor in Washington DC was giving free Obama logo tats for people who got another tattoo worth $200 or more.  I’m against political stickers on cars, nevermind permanent marks on your body showing support for a man who will be in office for only 4-8 years.  I mean, yeah most people are hopeful about his term, but what if Obama turns out to suck as president?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what happens.  There are some things Obama has talked about doing that I’m not in favor of, but there are things he’s talked about doing that I think are a good step in the right direction for our contry as well.  Should be an interesting time.

Zach Dotsey