Zach Dotsey

As good as Milly was yesterday, she decided to make up for it today.  Then again, I thought she was making up yesterday for the day before that, so who knows?  She was up a little early, didn’t finish her bottle and was fussy enough, despite that I tried several things to make her happy, that I was able to put her down for her nap just a little before 9:30.  She usually goes down closer to 10.

Work seems to slowly be getting back to how it was before a week or two ago.  That’s good in that I get to make money, but it would also be nice not to feel stressed out for having plans at 6:00.

Plans at 6:00 were going to Port City Community Church for a meeting about Grow Zone, the children’s ministry that Amanda and I both volunteer at.  There are some big changes coming up that they wanted to announce, first and foremost among them was that everyone who helps out in the rooms is going to be moved to doing it every week.  I can see why that’s a good idea, as it gives the kids more stability and the chance to build better relationships with them and their parents, but it gives me a lot to think about.  I also volunteer on the production team once a month, plus hardly a month goes by when Amanda and I don’t either have someone in town for the weekend or we’re out of town ourselves.  We’ll just have to pray about it and see where we’re lead.

Kirsten came over early to watch Milly while we went to the meeting and Barry came to pick her up at about 7:30, just a few minutes before Joel, Mia and Felix came over for small group, bearing a birthday cake.  I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think I’ve had more birthday cake for any other birthday in my life.  Anyway, they were the only other couple who could make it tonight, so we ate cake, chatted and breezed through our discussion.  We’ve only got one chapter left in our study on Romans.

Zach Dotsey

Given how moody Milly was for most of the day yesterday, I was really expecting a tough day today.  I was pleasantly surprised though, because not only was Milly good, but she was also a lot of fun.  She was still asleep, curled up with her butt in the air and her face pressed against a blanket, when I went to get her up.  She woke up happy, drank a full six ounces of formula, ate almost a full container of baby food and then stayed happy for a while.  I had piled some clean clothes on the loveseat, which she is now able to quickly and easily pull herself up to stand against, and for some reason she thought the clothes were very funny.

So not only was Milly happy, she was playful and very interactive, but then when I started working she even kept herself entertained.  She did start to get clingy around 10:00, but that’s about the time she usually goes down for a nap anyway.  She didn’t protest that very much and stayed down until her mama (who got home a few minutes early today) got her up.

All that allowed me a lot of time for work today, although I hit a snag on something that shouldn’t have really taken too long.  Because of that I ended up working until almost 8:00 tonight, but I did get a lot done after my normal working hours.

At 8:00 I helped Amanda get Milly ready for bed.  She decided to add something to the bedtime routine, which is to read to Milly every night.  We’ve been bad about consistently reading to her, so I’m glad Amanda brought up doing it.

A year ago I was on Costa Rica.

Zach Dotsey
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I woke up still feeling happy from Duke’s epic beatdown of Carolina last night.  Milly, though, was upset a lot today.  Amanda thinks she might be teething again, and there may be something to that, but I think she’s upset that she didn’t get to stay up and watch such a fun, awesome game.

Seth and Dana Holloman sat with us at church today.  They usually go to the 11:00 service, but Seth was golfing later so they came earlier.  After the service we went out to eat at Boca Bay with them, their son, Gavin, and Seth’s parents.  Seth’s dad even paid for the breakfast for all of us, which was really awesome of us.  I shouldn’t be surprised because when Seth, Randall and I went to Countdown to Craziness, the Duke season opening event, Seth’s dad drove us all and wouldn’t take gas money.

Gavin was really sweet with Milly again.  He held her hand and gave her a kiss before we all left.  He tried to walk with her, holding her hand, but Dana had to explain to him that she can’t walk yet.

After we got home both Milly and I took a nap, although I was on the couch and she was in her crib, and that took up a good chunk of the day.  Milly was off and on fussy after she got up though.  She’d be entertained and happy one minute and we had no idea how to make her happy the next.  See teething comment above.

At some point I took off to feed Michael’s cats and clean out their litter.  I talked to Jason on the way there, mostly about how awesome last night’s game was.

Amanda and I ended up feeding Milly and putting her to bed about half an hour early tonight.  After that Amanda watched part of the Academy Awards before heading off to bed.  I stayed up, messing around on the computer, and half-watched the rest of it.  The Hurt Locker won Best Picture.  Right now I’m watching American Pickers, which is a show about guys who go around and find collections of all kinds of old stuff and buy it.  It’s pretty fascinating to me.

Zach Dotsey

What a great night, and there are so many things that were great about this game.

I’ve been amped about the Carolina at Duke game since yesterday.  Going into it, I knew that Duke should win the game handily, and that it could be a blowout, but I figured we wouldn’t be that lucky.  I thought Carolina would hang around for a bit.  In reality, Carolina scored the first single point then Duke killed them from there.

• Michael Mercer, my brother-in-law and UNC fan, told me he was giving me two Duke wins over Carolina for my birthday.  It was a nice touch for him to make the margin of victory on this one the same as the age I just turned: 32.
• The worst loss Roy Williams has ever had was 33.  So close!
• I said beforehand that if Duke beat the largest margin of victory in the series (37, by Carolina many, many years ago) that I’d shave my face.  I thought it was going to happen, but it did not.
• Duke scored more in the first half (53) than Carolina scored the entire game.  That means Duke could have not scored at all in the second half and still get the win.  Think about how crazy that is.
• In the first half, Brian Zoubek had more rebounds by himself than the entire Tar Heel team.
• This was Carolina’s worst loss since 2002 (to Maryland) and the fewest points scored in a game since 2003 (to Duke).
• This was the worst loss by a defending NCAA champion since 1990.
• Duke set a school record for home wins in a season with 17.  All but one of those was by double digits, and the one that wasn’t was an out of conference game.
• Duke tied Maryland for the ACC regular season title but is the #1 seed in the ACC Tournament next week.
• Carolina has secured a #10 seed for the ACC Tournament, their lowest ever.
• Duke is being discussed as being the probable fourth #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.  It helps that Kansas State lost today.
• It was Senior Night for Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas.  Coach K was emotional during the Senior Day celebrations, which they showed before the game.
• The Presbyterian fan who was kicked out of a Carolina game by Roy Williams for mild heckling was in attendance.

So it was a good night, as you can see.

We started the day going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Actually, the day started earlier than that.  Bruce kept getting up and going downstairs to bother Karen and Milly woke up and cried a bunch around 1:00.  Maybe she’s teething again, because she was very fussy today.  She didn’t like being put down for naps, and when she did nap it wasn’t for long.  She wasn’t a fan of going to sleep tonight either, although she seemed to go out (or at least quiet down) pretty soon after I shut her door.

Anyway, Cracker Barrel.  We went to Wal-Mart after that to pick up a few things and Karen took off when we got home.  Amanda actually napped on the couch, which is very much a rarity.  I went out to pick up some chicken for our enchilada dinner tonight (we forgot to get it at Wally World) and to drop off the recycling.  I took a huge amount of paper recycling that had built up over a few years.  There were some slips of paper at the bottom of it that had been used for Balderdash, and I can’t remember the last time we played that.

Around 5:00 Amanda started getting things ready for tonight.  Blake and Stephanie Konny came over around 6:30 for dinner.  Since there was time, we went ahead and introduced them to Puerto Rico.  It didn’t go well for me and Amanda.  Blake won, followed by Stephanie then Amanda then me.  That’s okay though, because the game came on before we finished and I’ll admit I was a little distracted.  (Not that that’s why I lost.)  I did DVR the game, and I plan on watching it again.  It really was fun.

Zach Dotsey

Milly doesn’t like loud noises.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that she buried her head in my chest when Amanda was vacuuming and this past weekend when the blender was being used she’d get real tense and grab me really tight.

Tonight we went over to Anna and Barry’s, as they made a birthday meal for me.  All the Frazelles were there, plus Amanda’s mom, Karen, who is staying with us tonight, Amanda’s grandparents and my brother, Adam and Hannah’s boyfriend, Christian.  After they sang Happy Birthday to me I mentioned to Christian that this was the first time I had a rock star sing that to me.  The band he’s in, Rio Bravo, will be recording a studio album next week.

We tried putting Milly down for a nap while we all ate, but she wasn’t having it and we got her back up part way through dinner.  We had the pack & play set up in Anna and Barry’s room and went to put her down in there a little later, after we and she ate.  Barry and Earl were back there, and before we could put Milly down Barry accidentally caused a very loud noise that left my and Amanda’s ears ringing.  Milly didn’t do anything at first, out of shock I think, but then she started crying and wouldn’t stop.  We got her calmed down eventually, but there was no way she’d let us put her down, and it was getting on past her bedtime.

After a few minutes we decided we needed to get on home, hoping the drive and familiar settings would make it easier for her to go down.  I hated to leave so soon after eating when we were planning on hanging out for a bit, and I think Barry felt bad, but we really had to get her down.

Milly did well in the car, but once we got her upstairs she cried every time we laid her down in the crib.  She’d roll over then stand up and once she got up she’d be happy, but of course she then didn’t want us to leave.  Eventually I just had to go ahead and leave, and I think she was quiet by the time I got down the steps.

Amanda and Karen were tired and didn’t want to play Puerto Rico, so we just watched a little TV before they went off to bed.

Other than all that, my day was taken up with work.  I don’t feel like I’ve been as busy as I’ve been in the last few months, but it is getting busy once again, just when things were calming down a bit.  I don’t mind being busy, I just want it to be more manageable than it has been.  Manageable might not be the right word.

Zach Dotsey

I got a lot of happy birthday wishes today.  The first person I talked to (aside from Amanda when she was leaving) was my dad, who also celebrated his birthday, his 54th, today.  He’s going up to Rochester to see my mom this weekend.  But between IM’s, Facebook, Twitter, phone calls and message boards, I had a lot of people wish me well today, and I appreciate that.

Work was actually pretty busy, but for some reason I had a hard time concentrating today.

Milly was a bit bipolar today.  She was really happy and fun some, but then she’d turn around and only be happy if she was being held, or just not happy at all.  On top of that she wasn’t into napping much this evening.  I was a little tired and took her upstairs at about 6:00 to see if she’d take a nap with me, but she was enjoying crawling around on the bed too much.  At least she was entertained.

Amanda made quiche with sausage and biscuits for dinner with cinnamon rolls for dessert.  The Warkentiens joined us and brought no bake cookies.  After dinner we played Puerto Rico.  I actually had a bit of a plan going into it, and it worked out well.  I won, and by a pretty good margin.  Amy got second, Amanda third and Nick was last.  I don’t know exactly why we do it, but we tend to speak in various accents when we play that game, particularly Amy and I.  Usually it’s a British accent of some sort, but we both spent a good bit of time in something that was mostly Russian, maybe a little eastern European with maybe a dash of Hispanic sprinkled in here and there.

After that we watched The Office, which was the episode (well, two episodes put together) where Pam and Jim have their baby.  I thought Amanda was going to bed after Nick and Amy and Eli took off, but we ended up watching Community too.

That was pretty much my day.  It was a low key birthday, but it was a decent day.

Zach Dotsey

When I went to get Milly up this morning, I found her standing in her crib with her Duke pacifier in her mouth.  We leave a few pacis in the crib so she can easily find one if she needs it in between the time we put her down and the time we get her up, plus she tends to knock some out of the crib during the night.  Anyway, with Duke’s big game to clinch the outright #1 spot in the ACC this season looming large tonight, I thought maybe it was a good sign.

I was wrong.  Maryland came out pretty strong in the first half and Duke trailed by 14 early, but they got it within two points at the half then the two teams traded small leads and ties for most of the rest of the game with Maryland ending up on top.  Can’t hate too much- Maryland’s a good team with loud (if classless) fans.  On top of that, it was senior night for them and the were pretty amped up.  If both teams win their next game (which they should, facing Carolina and Virginia) they’ll tie for regular season conference champs.  Oh well.

Seth Holloman came over to watch the game with us.  We might go over to his place on Saturday night to watch Duke and Carolina.  Amanda had forgotten about the game and invited Blake and Stephanie Konny over for dinner.  I’ll be watching it one way or another, it’s just a matter of where.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it the other day or not, but Milly will sometimes share her puffs now.  If she picks one up and you open your mouth near her, sometimes she’ll put her tiny fist in your mouth to try to drop it off.  She did that again with me today, and yesterday she was putting her paci in my mouth.  It’s so cute.

What’s not so cute is the three poops she had today.  Just thought I’d throw that in there.

Zach Dotsey