Zach Dotsey

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

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 am so close to being caught up at work!  it’s such a great feeling.

In other nice news, Milly seemed to be very happy today.  She has been quite a bit lately.  I think she’s just getting more and more interactive and expressive and just enjoys everything.

Amanda, Milly and I went over to Seth and Dana Holloman’s tonight to play some Puerto Rico.  We got there right at 7:30 and fed Milly then put her to bed.  As is usual lately, she was very distracted by things going on around her and it took her a while to drink her bottle.  Gavin, Seth and Dana’s son, was very sweet with her and told her he loved her when we took her off to bed.  She cried a little, but she hadn’t napped this afternoon so she fell asleep pretty quickly.

After Gavin went down the four of us played Puerto Rico.  Amanda won the first game, followed by Dana, then Seth with me losing out.  I knew I wasn’t doing well.  We played a second game and it seemed to go faster.  We all thought Amanda was going to win again, probably because she had enough dubloons (or “dublins”, as Dana likes to call them) to buy anything she wanted.  I thought I was going to lose again, but to my surprise I actually won.  In fact, the winning order was completely backwards from the first game, going me, Seth, Dana, Amanda.  I think they were only one point removed from each other and I only had a couple more points than Seth.  What won it for me was having a combination of the Harbor and the Wharf with enough resources coming in to ship out a good amount of them each Captain phase.

I know that makes no sense to most of you.  Puerto Rico is an awesome game though.  If you get a chance, play it at least twice.  Usually you know most of what you’re doing by the second time around.

In less happy news, a dude crashed his plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas today.  He left a message on his website about being displeased with the IRS and some other government agencies, or something to that effect.  Two people died, two were seriously injured and a number had minor injuries.  I can understand people being upset with the IRS, but the crazy thing is that on the comments section of the article on CNN.com, some people were praising his actions, which is terrible.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda had an industrious day today.  She got a good bit of laundry put up and picked up upstairs a lot then started catching up on some scrapbooking.  (That sentence had a lot of “up” in it.)

Meanwhile, I worked pretty much straight on until 8:00.  I took a break to help feed Milly and put her to bed then worked until 10:00.

On the subject of Milly eating, she managed to twist of the the Bumbo tonight, which is where we sit her to feed her once she’s finished her bottle.  All I heard was the smack of her hitting the floor, but Amanda said she was leaning out so much that her face was really near to the floor so she didn’t actully fall much at all.  She cried a little but then we stuck some food in her mouth and that seemed to make it better.  I told Amanda that was not a good precedent to set: food will make it all better.

Amanda moved Milly to the highchair after that, but she hasn’t been in it very much and was really distracted by things as interesting as the straps holding her in.  Amanda’s mom, Karen, arrived at our house just as we were finishing getting Milly ready for bed.  Karen went on and on about how her grandbaby just keeps getting prettier and prettier.  Milly gave her some nice big smiles.

In good news for the day, Coach David Cutcliffe gave the University of Tennessee an ultimatum yesterday, saying they needed to go ahead and hire him in the next 24 hours or it was off.  I think his reasoning for this was that it’s a big recruiting weekend, and with the head coaching position up in the air like it was he’d miss out on some recruits if he ended up staying at Duke.  But then this morning he withdrew his name from consideration, to the adulation of many Blue Devil fans.  I think it’s a great move for him and it definitely benefits Duke.

In sadder news, Jason’s mom, Margie, took Sophie to the vet today to have her put down.  Jason told me that his mom said the shadows of the trees they were passing while in the car gave Sophie seizures and it sounded like the vet agreed it was time.  I could tell he was a little choked up.  It made me sad too, not just because I could empathize with him but because I remember when they got Sophie.  They’ve had that dog for half our lives.

We’re going to eat at Cracker Barrel in the morning, as we often do when Karen comes to town.  We called Michael to let him know and after some cajoling (because 10:00 is too early) he said that he and Jenn would be coming too.

Zach Dotsey

The first number is how many points Duke beat Boston College by tonight.  The second is how many points Carolina lost to Clemson by tonight.  That right there makes for a good night.  I particularly liked when Andy Katz was trying to interview Trevor Booker of Clemson after the game, but Booker couldn’t hear his questions because the court had been rushed (it’s been a long time since Clemson last beat Carolina) and the crowd was too loud.

Amanda stayed at work a little late to make up for some time lost a couple days ago.  The internet was out at work on, Monday, I think it was, and she wasn’t able to really do anything so she was told she could leave early and make it up later.  So she did that today.  She brought home some Little Caesar’s for lunch.

Amy and Eli Warkentien came over today to play with Amanda and Milly.  I moved myself to the office and the girls played on the Wii after the kiddies went down for naps.

I think tonight was the first time Amanda gave Milly a bath in the tub.  I find it much easier than the sink.  Milly’s so cute in her little baby tub in the big tub.

On a negative note, a large earthquake hit Haiti yesterday, pretty much destroying the capital, Port-Au-Prince.  Up to 100,000 people are feared dead.  That’s just a staggering number.  And given the infrastructure, it’s going to be difficult to get support and aid really going.  I’m praying for all the people there, those who have lost their lives, loved ones and all the things they own.

Zach Dotsey

Yeah, still not caught up all the way at work.  One day….

Amanda stayed at work a little late because they were getting pizza for lunch.  She stopped by Target on the way home to pick up a few things, including a bathing suit for Milly.  Obviously she’s not wearing it when it’s 17 degrees outside with the windchill, but she got the 12 month size.  Amanda couldn’t help but think that Milly would be a whole year old when she’ll be wearing it.  As Amanda reflected, it sounds different saying “one year” as opposed to “twelve months”.

Milly Dotseys First Pigtails

She also picked up some hair bands, figuring Milly’s hair is finally long enough to put up in pigtails.  And it was!  Amanda gave her on pigtail on the top of her head first then did two.  They looked like antennae and were so cute!

I finally took a permanent break from work (for the night) around 8:30 when Seth Holloman gave me a call.  His TV was crooked because the wall mount, I think, was coming loose from the wall.  He was going to leave it until tomorrow, but then it slid a little more and he got worried that the TV would fall, so he needed help getting it off and putting it back on.  I got over there then back home just in time for tip off for the Duke-Iowa State game.

Every year Coach K tries to schedule a game in the hometown of any of his seniors and tonight’s game was played at the United Center in Chicago for Jon Scheyer.  Scheyer’s been amazing this season and is in early talks not only for ACC Player of the Year honors, but he’s being talked about for National Player of the Year as well.  He didn’t disappoint his hometown crowd either, scoring 31 points.  Nolan Smith has 20, Kyle Singler scored 15 and Lance Thomas put in a good defensive game, helping hold the Cyclones’ star, Craig Brackins, to 12 points.  The final score was 86-65 despite a couple run Iowa State went on.

In other basketball news, Gilbert Arenas has been indefinitely suspended from the NBA without pay for having a gun in the locker room at a game.  It’s amazing to me that people who have so much can be so stupid.

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