Zach Dotsey

There was an earthquake early this morning off the coast of Chile, an 8.8 with a whole lot of aftershocks which  has killed, last I saw, over 200 people.  On top of that it was reported that a tsunami from it was heading towards Hawaii, but I don’t think anything came of that.

In my own life, Amanda got up with Milly this morning, which was nice.  She fed her then put her i n bed with me after she ate.  My baby was in a good mood.

A little later we, along with the Lambeths, ate a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage then went over to the Frazelles’.  Ben mentioned wanting to see them, plus he and Jessica wanted to take Graelyn out to see the beach.  I don’t know if the girls were off their schedules or what, but Milly and Graelyn took turns being fussy, Milly more so.  Since Milly was being so fussy (and Graelyn wasn’t at that point), Amanda, Milly and I stayed in the house while the Lambeths went to get a few pictures.  It was also cold and there are giant pipes running the length of the beach since they’re pumping sand to one spot to replenish it.

Anyway, we hung out with Anna, Barry and Kirsten (Hannah made an appearance as well) then headed on back to the house after stopping to pick up some steaks for dinner.  We also got some cake in celebration of my impending birthday.

We gave Milly and Graelyn a bath together, which was fun.  We used Milly’s bathtub thing and put Graelyn in the seat part with Milly in the deeper part.  They both love baths and seemed to have fun in there.

Milly, as I think I’ve mentioned lately, has been really distracted while being fed lately.  Everyone else was busy getting dinner ready while I was trying to keep Milly entertained (as I said, the babies were very fussy today) and since Amanda, Ben and Jessica had talked about Veggie Tales earlier, I thought I’d pull up some Veggie Tales videos on YouTube for Milly to see what she thought.  Well, it held her attention, and she drank all her formula while watching them.  I suppose it’s the dawn of the electronic nanny era in our household.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that.

Dinner was great.  Ben fixed the steak and we also had green beans and salad.  Amanda’s salad is always good, but it seemed even better than usual tonight, and Ben’s steak was just outstanding.  After that we ate some very yummy cake and sat around talking insurance and politics for a bit before settling into watching District 9, which Ben got from the Redbox at Lowe’s Food.  I don’t think anyone else liked it as much as I did, but I’ve been wanting to see it since before it was in the theaters and I was not disappointed in the least.  I thought it was really, really good.

Harvey was very smelly tonight.  I don’t know what the deal was, but he smelled like fish.  He did yesterday too, but Amanda was able to wipe him down with some Nature’s Miracle to take care of it, but that didn’t work tonight so I ended up giving him a bath.  He smells much better now.

I think the plan is to forgo church tomorrow morning.  As I understand it’s mostly going to be sort of a call for volunteers, and since Amanda and I together volunteer three out of four weeks a month and Ben and Jessica will be leaving, not to mention that we were up later than usual tonight and it will probably be stressful getting the babies all ready on time, I think we’re just going to get up and go grab some breakfast.

It was Upset Day in college hoops.  First, Kentucky got beat by Tennessee then Kansas got beat by Oklahoma State, so the top two teams in the nation, both with only one previous loss, both lost in the same day.  Georgetown, ranked 11, was beaten by unranked Notre Dame and Texas A&M beat Texas.  That one wasn’t a huge upset as they were ranked 21 and 22, but Texas was #1 earlier in the season and I think started out at #2.  In the ACC, Carolina finally got a win, this one coming at the expense of Wake Forest on their own court, which has to be embarrassing this year.  That irritated me because the Tar Heels were tied with NC State for last place in the ACC, but then NC State finally got another win (over Miami), so the Heels are still at the bottom, but now it’s a three-way tie between the Heels, the Wolfpack and the Hurricanes.  Of the three though, the Heels have the worst overall record, so that’s nice consolation.

Zach Dotsey

I spent a good bit of time this morning cleaning up the office.  That was the intent, anyway.  I got a lot done, shredded up a bunch of old bills, reorganizing the filing cabinet, clearing off the desk and another table, but at a glance it doesn’t look like much has been done.

Amanda’s itching to play Puerto Rico.  The last time she was wanting to play a game like that we ended up making our own Settlers of Catan.  No way we’re doing that with Puerto Rico though, plus Amanda’s not laid up post-surgery now either.  She looked for it while she ran out to do some errands today but couldn’t find it, so she’s ordered it from Amazon.com.

I started watching the Duke-Georgia Tech game, but we have been talking to the Frazelles about going to see Avatar for quite a while and had made plans to go today, so I watched half of the first half and DVR’ed it.  Cyra came over to watch Milly and we headed off to see the movie.

Barry bought our tickets, which was really nice of him.  Amanda brought some candy but no drink, so I did spend $5.75 on a medium Cherry Coke.  Of course, the thing was about a liter and we got free refills.  Free refills ended up being one refill on the way out of the theater, just so I could feel okay about spending almost $6.00 on a drink.  I can’t remember the last time we bought a drink or candy at a theater.

So, Avatar was cool, and it was in 3D.  I’ll admit that towards the end of the movie, when I was caught up in watching it and wasn’t thinking at all about what I was doing, I swatted at a 3D bug.  That was little embarrassing, like I’d never been to a 3D movie before.

Anyway, out of the six people in our group who saw it (all of the Frazelles plus me and Amanda) everyone really liked it except for Anna, who said it was too long and boring.  So if you’re talking movies to her and she goes on about how much she disliked Avatar, just keep in mind that 83% of the people she saw it with liked it.

Back home, Cyra said Milly had been good with her.  Milly was asleep when we left and didn’t react negatively to Cyra getting her up, which is good.  It sounded like they had a nice time together.

I did a good job of not checking up on the basketball game while we were out.  I did see that Duke was up a little at the half, but I didn’t check anything after the movie started.  In fact, I was wearing a Duke shirt and made sure to cover it up with my coat to make sure nobody said anything in passing.  I turned the game on as soon as Cyra left.

Duke lost 71-67.  I’ll go ahead and say that.  Georgia Tech played some really aggressive defense and the game was allowed to be played much tougher than you usually see in the ACC.  To add to it though, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler both only scored nine points, but Jon Scheyer scored 25.  Duke shot an absolutely abysmal 6-28 from beyond the arc.  I’ll credit some of that to the Yellow Jackets’ defense, but I remember seeing some wide-open shots that just wouldn’t go in.

What’s really boggling though is that Miles and Mason Plumlee combined for 9-10 shooting, but nobody really looked to keep passing the ball to the post.  I really wish they’d start doing that more, particularly when the outside shots aren’t falling.  Mason looked particularly good.  Dude’s getting better every game.

I wasn’t too upset about the loss.  I didn’t have  good feeling going into it and Georgia Tech is ranked in the top 20, so it didn’t sting as bad as it could have.  I think Duke will learn from it.

I ended up walking upstairs and back down several times tonight.  Amanda suggested watching a DVD in bed tonight, so I went to get the old Xbox, which had been in the guestroom, then I went to get something to watch, then I came back down to look for the remote, which ended up being upstairs anyway, and then I discovered that the batteries were dead so I had to come back down to replace the triple A’s.

Amanda’s prerequisites for picking something to watch were that it wasn’t something we haven’t watched yet and something that didn’t take too much attention to watch, since we’d probably both fall asleep anyway.  I ended up picking the first season of Arrested Development.

I finally decided to start watching Arrested Development a few episodes before it got canceled and always wanted to go back and watch it, so Amanda had picked up the full series for me for Christmas.  So, while we hadn’t seen it, it was a good choice anyway.

Zach Dotsey
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Milly’s birthyear, 2009, had passed and her first new year, 2010, is upon us.  I can’t help but think of all the things that lie ahead for her: crawling, walking, talking (right?), interacting more with other kids, her first birthday celebration and more.  Already today we bought her her first solid food.  She actually tried some before, these little cereal looking things that just about dissolve in your mouth, a couple weeks ago when we ate at the mall with Nick and Amy, but today we actually bought some for her.  Milly can’t quite seem to get them in her mouth very easily yet though.  She picks them up between her thumb and her pointer finger, but when she does that her hand is in a fist, so it’s not easy for her to put it in there.

We also bought these things called Mum Mum bars (Mum Mum!), which are larger, wafer-type things.  She eats that much more easily, but the part she holds in her hand ends up turning to mush.

On the first day of Milly’s first new year she ended up sleeping in until about 8:30.  Amanda was kind enough to get up with her and I got up about an hour later, although I did get up at 7:00.  Harvey was making mooing noises and went downstairs.  I was afraid he’d chew something so I let him out and fed him.  Of course as soon as I went back upstairs to get in bed, Bruce decided he wanted to go out too.

Amanda and I started 2010 with a nice breakfast of pancakes, eggs and apple sausage.  I used a juicer we got from my parents to make fresh-squeezed orange juice.  It was awesome, but there were little bits of seeds now and then.

After breakfast and Milly’s lunch we all went out to the mall so Amanda could exchange a flannel shirt I got her for Christmas.  She liked it, but it was too big.  Unfortunately, Gap didn’t have any more of them so she just took it back and later went to Old Navy and got something else.

We went to Nick and Amy’s this evening, taking spaghetti and meatballs and some bread over there along with The Hangover, which Billy is letting us borrow.  The Warkentiens just got back in from a 16 hour drive from Michigan today.  Eli is moving around really well.  He’s army crawling, but he can book it.  He’s also able to pull himself upright and stand against things.  He very briefly stood without any support tonight too.

Zach Dotsey

I nodded off during the second half of the game last night, but not because it was boring.  Duke took Gonzaga to the old proverbial woodshed and ended up winning 76-41.

Amanda hasn’t been feeling the absolute best the past few days, so last we decided to play by ear which church service we’d go to today.  Harvey ended up deciding for us though, as he was whining from about 7:30 on this morning.  I don’t know if it was because he wanted to go outside, though I let him out at 4:00 when I woke up from falling asleep on the couch last night, or if it was because he’s used to having breakfast at 6:30 when Amanda gets up during the week or what.  It was obnoxious, but since he’d woken us up Amanda and I decided to go ahead and get ready for church.

After church Amanda and I ran by the house to get another bottle for Milly, let the dogs out and grab a coupon (which we forgot to use) then headed back on out to meet my brother, Adam, at Sam’s Club.  Originally we were going to get something for our dad from our mom for Christmas, but my mom told me not to worry about it this morning so he just tagged along to buy some things.

When we left there Amanda, Milly and I went over to Anna and Barry’s.  Hannah got to change her first Milly diaper (it was wet with a small bit of easy-to-clean attached) while I watched a good bit of Terminator Salvation before Anna went with us to take a few pictures on the beach.  The wind was cold and Milly started fussing after a little bit, so we weren’t out there long.

From there we made a stop to pick up a few Christmas presents, so we’re all done with that now except for my shopping for Amanda.  I think I know what I’m going to get her now, my original and much more exciting gift idea having been basically nixed.

We were pretty beat once we got home.  We had things to put up and bottles to clean, not to mention a baby to feed again.  Milly had virtually not napped at all today and ended up sleeping from the time she finished her 4:00 feeding (about 4:30) until about 7:00.  Amanda and I watched TV and messed around on the computer in the meantime.  Hopefully the late nap won’t mes up Milly’s sleep for tonight.

Brittany Murphy was found dead of cardiac arrest today.  It’s been a while since she’s been in anything and there was a Saturday Night Live bit on the Weekend Update segment making fun of her getting fired from a movie recently.  It was from last week’s SNL and we watched it after the news had broke but before we found out about it (from an off-hand comment my friend Jason Revill made on his wall).  Dying from cardiac arrest at the age of 32 makes one jump tp conclusions as to the cause of death.

Zach Dotsey

Today was a Monday, as Mondays tend to be.  Milly napped more than usual today, which was helpful, but she was very needy and fussy when she wasn’t napping.  If she’s cutting a tooth I wish it would hurry up and come on out.

She’s getting a lot more mobile, though she’s not at all crawling yet.  I guess she’s just rolling around a lot, but I don’t actually see her moving.  In fact, while I was talking to Amanda around lunchtime today I had Milly on her mat in front of the TV.  At various times when I looked at her she went from there over towards the couch then over by the pack & play.  Now, you probably have no clue whatsoever what that means, but she basically made a triangle through half of the living room.

Billy and Cyra came over to watch How I Met Your Mother bearing Chinese food for dinner.  When they got here we had just started watching Elf, which was on some network or another.  Amanda and I realized that it was Milly’s first Christmas movie (even though she didn’t get to watch it all).

On a more somber note, there was news yesterday and it was confirmed today that the sister of Duke player Andre Dawkins, Lacey, was killed when she and her mom were in a car wreck on the way to go to the St. John’s game at Cameron on Saturday.  I can’t imagine what he’s going through or what he’s feeling.  I heard that Dre was involved in his church, so I trust that he and the family have a good support system.  I’m praying for the family in such a hard, hard time.  The support shown from so many different fan based has been very touching to see.

Zach Dotsey

Retribution for ‘99 and ‘04!  Okay, not quite.  The Huskies still owe the Blue Devils two NCAA championships, but still, Duke beat Connecticut pretty handily this evening.  It was an ugly brawl, Singler was in foul trouble and only made two field goals, the three main big men (Miles Plumlee, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas) all fouled out, Duke shot 29%, officiating was horrendous and my team blew an 18 point lead to win by nine, but the game made a statement.  People have talked about how soft and unathletic Duke is, especially in comparison to a team like UConn, but Duke killed them on defense and rebounding.  It was a statement game and a really good win.  This game also makes Duke 5-4 all time versus UConn.

Last night Michael and I watched a movie called Baghead.  I really kind of liked it.  After we watched it I slept downstairs last night because I was coughing and didn’t want to disturb my two favorite girls.

Amanda and I met with Sarah (who actually went to Duke and helped in the athletic department I believe) and Mike Erreca for lunch at Arnold’s.  Sarah, who is a friend of Amanda’s from high school, brought her parents along and Karen (who works with Sarah’s mom) showed up too.

I met Mike and Sarah (funny, I just realized they’re not the first Mike and Sarah we know, and in fact you could say they’re one of three if you include a past relationship) at their wedding, but I really enjoyed talking to them.  I think Mike and I have a similar sense of humor.

Everyone loved Milly, of course.  She was passed around the table a couple of times and behaved herself pretty well for the most part.

After we finished and hung out a bit, talking, Amanda, Milly and I were invited over to the Barbee house (Sarah’s parents) to help them get rid of some of their leftover Thanksgiving dessert.  Amy Farmer called as we were leaving Arnold’s to say that she was heading back home, but she was nearby and stopped off in the parking lot to see us.  Then, on the way to the Barbees’, Amanda saw Brad Failor, another old friend of hers, outside of his house, so we turned around and talked to him, his wife and his brother for a few minutes.

I really liked the Barbee house.  It’s very open and uses a lot of wood.  While helping them get rid of their desserts, I dipped my finger into some cranberry sauce and let Milly have a taste.  She become like unto a crack addict for it.  I mean she really liked the stuff.

Once we got back to the Mercer house Amanda and Karen took off to do some shopping in Jacksonville.  Michael and Jenn were already there and I think Phil was in the shop.  Milly took a very short nap before I gave her her 4:00 feeding, including some rice cereal.  It was the first time that I think I came close to making it properly.  Before it was way too runny.  It was a little on the thick side this time, but she ate it all up after her bottle.

Milly and I watched the Duke-UConn game, but she started getting fussy so I put her down for a nap a few minutes before Michael and Jenn got back.  She didn’t stay down long, but she was in a good mood when I got her back up.  Amanda and Karen got home just a little before the game ended and we all ate pizza for dinner.

A little later Amanda, Karen, Michael Jenn and I played Scattergories.  I thought I stood a good chance of winning, but Karen beat me by two point.  The rest of the order of winning continued in age order, from oldest to youngest.

Zach Dotsey

I was in bed last night at about 10:30 and I got up somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30.  The bad thing about having more time in the morning than you’re used to is that you do something with it, and when you feel like you’ve got more time than you do you end up running out of time.  I spent time washing bottles and cleaning a tub.

Amanda got home and finished getting everything packed up.  I finished up some work and helped load the car, and we were on the road just before 1:00, which I was a little surprised by.  Amanda drove so I’d be able to answer and try to take care of any work calls.  I ended up just playing on the computer for most of the trip, but it made the four hours go by pretty fast.

Milly and Graelyn. Kinda glad we didn't have twins.

We got to Ben and Jessica’s in right at four hours.  We took two wrong exits and got a little confused on where to go once we got off their exit (the answer is straight, which looked like it would take us back onto the highway).  We also made one stop for gas and a bathroom break off one of our wrong exits in Greensboro.  I was oddly impressed by the bathroom.  I mean, it was just a regular gas station bathroom with a single toilet in it, but it had a few framed pictures and a fake plant on the wall, not to mention a wallpaper border just below where the wall met the ceiling.  Classy.

When we got to the Lambeth house Jessica and Graelyn were waiting on the porch for us.  Ben wasn’t off work yet.  I showed Graelyn to Milly, who immediately started talking to her and grabbing at her.  It’s amazing, the difference between a two month old and a five month old.

Something really bothered Milly a little later, just a little bit before Ben got home.  It’s not that we’ve never seen her inconsolable before, but the intensity with which she was crying was something we have not witnessed in her life up to now. We can’t complain too much though- she was awesome on this trip, which was the longest she’s ever taken.  She slept almost the whole way and quietly played in her car seat when she was awake.

Ben got home and we ate dinner then watched Star Trek, which I’ve wanted to see since it was in the theater.  We all trickled off to bed after that.

Zach Dotsey