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

I woke up around 7:00 this morning.  Milly wasn’t fussing, but she was awake and I didn’t know what time it was, so I got on up.  Milly and I talked to Uncle Roy for a bit, and when I heard my parents I took Milly to see them.  Since Mom got in late last night she didn’t get to see Milly.  She didn’t get to see anyone, come to think of it.  I think I ended up going to sleep about 15 minutes before she and my dad got back to the house.

As I noticed last night, there was snow on the ground, probably a couple inches.  Amanda and I took Milly out to check it out, but she wasn’t really into it.  I got a few pictures and a little bit of video, but nothing monumental.

We mostly just hung around for a good part of the day.  Milly had her first taste of eggs, which she didn’t seem to mind too much.  I tried to install a printer on Uncle Roy’s laptop and drew and colored a picture of one of Jackson’s toys in Photoshop.  I’d shown him a little bit about how to use it yesterday, which he seemed to enjoy.  I wish they’d come out with a new MarioPaint, because the basics I learned playing with that were the basis for a lot of what I taught myself with Photoshop.

Duke hosted Maryland today.  Not only was it Coach K’s 1oooth game, and not only was it his birthday, but it was also a game to determine the #1 spot in the ACC.  The Terps were second but if they won they’d take Duke’s #1 spot.

The game started and Duke rebounded a Maryland attempt then Jon Scheyer made a three.  Then the power went out.  It came back on, but the satellite was taking forever to sync back up.  Then the power went out again.  Not only did it interrupt my game, but both laptops that were in use (mine, with Amanda on it, and Uncle Roy on his) died.  Dad and Josh were doing some bathroom work (they ended up pretty much completely stripping out the bathroom at the top of the stairs) and had to cut the power for some reason while they were draining the water.  Or something like that.

Once the power came back on the satellite took forever to reboot again, so I watched some of the game online until the TV was ready.

It was a great game.  Duke won by 21 and Brian Zoubek had his best game ever with 16 points and 17 rebounds!  Dude was a beast today.

In other basketball news, Carolina beat NC State in a game to determine who would reside in the cellar of the ACC.  Carolina, sadly, was able to stop their losing streak.  I watched UK beat Tennessee just a little bit ago.  It was tight until the end of the game when I guess the Wildcats decided they were tired of trading buckets.

We played some MarioKart for a bit then Amanda, Milly and I left just before 5:00.  The trip was pretty uneventful aside from the fact that I drove (even though I drove up as well, and we usually trade off duties) and Milly cried most of the last 15 miles or so of the trip.  She seemed to just be tired of being in the car.  She was also distracted while eating and didn’t go to bed too easily.

Amanda and I watched The Office and 30 Rock before she went to bed, then I watched an episode of Smallville.  The next one features the Justice Society.  I’d have gone ahead and watched it, but it’s a two hour one I think, and I remembered that Kentucky and Tennessee were playing.

The Revills, by the way, got two new dogs today.  They were just going to get one but they decided they liked two of them.  Lucy and Maxine are their names.  As you may recall, they recently lost two dogs.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda, Milly and I left this morning around 9:00 on what would turn out to be the longest trip to Rougemont, normally about a two and a half hour trip, ever.

First we stopped off in Clayton at about 11:30 to see my boss, Scott.  We used the GPS to get there.  Anyway, Scott hadn’t met Milly yet and Amanda hadn’t even met his younger daughter, Ava, who is now… two or three?  Scott, Ava and his wife, Ann Marie, were all there.  Addie, the older daughter, was in school.

After that we met up with Erin at Southpoint for lunch.  We were there for a bit before she got there, then we went to look for a birthday present for her.  Since the dogs were in the car, I ended up taking Milly and heading on out while Amanda and Erin shopped.  We did get Milly her first ever Duke hat.

On the way to the Rouge I called my old buddy, Jason Revill, to update him on my goings-on, since he was going to try to meet up with us.  He was helping prepare some stuff with his parents at Aldersgate Church, so Milly and I ended up stopping by there to see them.  Nearly eight months old, and she finally gets to meet my best friend and his parents, who were like a second set of parents to me.  We tried to get together before, but it just never worked out.  It felt special to be able to introduce Milly to them.

We went on to Rougemont after that, arriving at about 4:00.  Seven hours, longest trip from Wilmington to Rougemont ever.  My dad, Andra and her baby, Addison, were there.  Addison was so sweet.  She was excited to see Milly (they’re exactly seven months apart) and kept hugging her.  Milly isn’t very advanced on her interactions with people her size yet, so I think it annoyed her more than anything else.  But it was so sweet to see.  I thought many times today that I can’t wait for them to be big enough to really play together.

Josh and Jackson arrived with Erin and Amanda right after them.  Amanda and Erin had seen Elmo and Dulce, one of my parents’ dogs and Erin’s, by the road and had picked them up.  Amanda got some poop or something on her clothes from it, so she went to change and wash her clothes.  I spent some time working this evening.

Uncle Roy got home from work as Jackson and left to find some Cold-Eeze, mainly for Amanda because she felt some sick coming on, but I had a little bit of a sore throat yesterday and thought it would be good for me too.  We went to three or four nearby places but couldn’t find any.  I had a good time riding around with Jackson.  I told him why we preferred to call my mom Mum Mum instead of Nana (a name in honor of my own grandma versus a name similar to what we’re calling Milly’s other grandma, which could make it confusing) and he told me that with my peacoat on I looked like a villain spy.  He asked if I was a spy so we talked about what situations I’d be able to tell him if I was a spy or not.

As I said, we didn’t find the Cold-Eeze, and I didn’t realize Amanda wanted them as bad as she did, so I went back out after I dropped Jackson back off at the house and this time I went towards Durham instead of towards Roxboro.  I also picked up some extra baby food because Milly was wolfing it down.  On the way back I noticed that it was lightly snowing.  Amanda’s brother, Michael, texted a little later and said it was coming down pretty heavily in Wilmington and actually sticking.

Amanda and I put Milly to bed after I got back then Erin, Josh and Andra went out and Dad went to pick up my mom, whose flight had been delayed.

Amanda got Addison to go to bed then she went to bed herself shortly after.  I snoozed on the couch while Jackson played Wii.  When he was done he wanted to watch cartoons, and while I was flipping through the channels trying to find Cartoon Network for him we came across Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which he decided he wanted to watch.

I just went to let Bruce and Harvey out to pee and the ground is already covered in snow, so tomorrow we’ll have to get some pictures of Milly out there in it.  Amanda packed warm clothes for her just in case this situation occurred.

Zach Dotsey

Happy 27th birthday, Michael Mercer!  He worked early this morning then I think Jenn took him out to eat and watched him eat (she’s a picky eater, if it hasn’t been mentioned before) and when Amanda called him they were sitting around watching One Tree Hill.  Her choice, not his, I believe.

I worked upstairs pretty much all day today so that Milly could play and crawl around as much as she wanted in the nursery, without me having to worry about her getting into things or going after the power cord on the laptop.  She loves that thing.

It was a pretty tough day.  Usually I get a lot done while Milly takes her naps, but she woke up early from them and wouldn’t stop crying until I got her out of the crib.  On top of that she’s gotten to where she likes to drink about half of her formula then flip over and start crawling around.  The formula doesn’t go to waste (much) because we just mix it in with rice cereal, but it’s looking like the days of letting her feed herself the bottle are gone, or at least cut in half.

I don’t mean to complain about Milly.  She’s a terrific baby and still generally pretty easy to deal with.  I just fear that something will have to change soon in regards to me watching her while I work.  Some of this can probably be attributed to her teething, but as she gets more mobile and independent, watching her is going to become increasingly difficult.  I know Amy’s offered to help watch her during the day, but it’s not like I can get her to do that every Monday and every morning

Not too much else to report on today.  Milly went down for a nap a little earlier than usual this evening and wasn’t up when Amanda got home, which was a bit of a disappointment to her, but they got to spend plenty of time together after she woke up as I was catching up on work, as I’ve been doing for what seems like months now.

In happy news today, the Carolina Tar Heels dropped out of the top 25 in both polls today for the first time since January of  2006.  They did, mysteriously, receive one ranking vote in one of the polls.  That’s nuts.  Even die-hard Carolina fans know they have no right to be ranked right now.

In other news, Milly ate her first Goldfish today.  I stayed right next to her to make sure it wasn’t too tough for her or that she’d choke on it.  She didn’t seem to like it much, probably too salty.  And speaking of choking on something, I found two pieces of rug in Milly’s mouth from when she was crawling around in the nursery this morning, so I’ve now rolled that rug up.

And speaking of things in mouths, Jason’s going to have to have two root canals.  Apparently he damaged the tooth next to the one that was bent back as well.ja

Zach Dotsey

Our day started out in a similar manner to yesterday, with Milly talking to herself off and on throughout the early morning until she fussed, at which time she spent a few minutes in bed before we got up to feed her.  Phil went to church early because the Baptist Men’s Group was singing in the choir (or some such).  Amanda went to get some biscuits for me, Karen and herself for breakfast then Karen went to church.

Amanda and I played MarioKart and took showers.  When Karen got home, about the time Michael and Jenn both got up, she made some steak and cheese sandwiches out of leftovers from last night.  She laid a bunch of other stuff out too, basically trying to get rid of as much food as she could before we all left.

After Milly went down for a nap Amanda, Michael, Karen and I played Puerto Rico.  Jenn wasn’t feeling it and Phil’s not much of one for playing games.  Amanda won this one, but the point spread was crazy close.  She had 43, Karen and I tied at 42 (though Karen had more dubloons, so she won that tie-breaker) and Michael had 41.  I really like that game and I could play it back to back several times if someone else would go along with it.

It was just about to time to feed Milly again after the game so she was fed and everyone packed up to leave.  Michael and Jenn left a little before us.  Bruce snuck out of the house while I was going out to load the car and jumped in, waiting for us to take off.  He stayed in there the whole time, except for when I took him out right before we left so he could relieve himself.

The ride home was without incident, though Milly again didn’t sleep on the trip and was angry fussing the last ten miles.  We thought she’d pooped, but it turned out that one of the dogs, very likely Harvey, had simply farted.

Back home we unpacked and watched an episode of The Soup and a couple Law & Order: SVU’s.

Two other things of note from today:

1.  Amanda accidentally knocked a statue of St. Francis of Assisi in the sunroom onto the very laptop I’m typing on right now.  It’s working fine, but I think a few keys are loose and there are a few very small pock marks on the screen now.

2.  Jason Revill called me today and asked me a favor.  He wanted me to call Barry Frazelle, Amanda’s uncle who is a dentist, and ask him about a situation.  You see, Jason went to Greensboro this weekend to hang out with some guys we went to college with.  Apparently Jaime Arnold accidentally knocked Jason down.  Jason tripped at the same time and ended up faceplanting into the ground.  His front left tooth was knocked back (on top of busting his lip and getting a shiner) but he was able to push it back into place.  He said it doesn’t hurt or bother him except for when he messes with it.

I talked to Barry and he said to keep on a soft diet and take Advil.  As for what would happen with the tooth, he said it depended on the root.  If the root wasn’t damaged they would splint the tooth by tying it to one next to it with floss and put something on it to keep it in place until it heals.If the root was damaged though, he’d need a root canal and that sucker is going to have to come out.

Zach Dotsey
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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

Milly turned seven months old today.  She celebrated by having a pretty fussy day.  I don’t know if she was tired or what, but I ended up putting her down just a little bit earlier than usual for her morning nap and when she got cranky this evening she fussed the whole time we put her down for her nap until we decided that there wasn’t enough time for her to fall asleep and be worthwhile before her dinner.  In fact, she was good for a little bit after we got her up, but she was so fussy that we ended up feeding her about ten minutes early.

It’s not like she was bad all day though.  She had some fun and sweet times too.

I met a client we’ve had for a year or so today.  He was having some email trouble and we were having a hard time taking care of it over the phone, so I just went over to help him out.  We have so many clients, even here in Wilmington, that I’ve never actually met, and it’s good to put a face to a name sometimes.

Justin and Lisa Hauenstein came over for dinner tonight.  It’s been since a little after Milly was born since we’ve spent any real time with just then, except for when we were all over at the Boscljons’ a little bit back, and it was really good to catch up with them.  They’re expecting a baby, Ayden Matthew, on May 8, a day before Amanda’s birthday.  That’ll be a great Mother’s Day present for Lisa.

After dinner, and after Milly went to bed, Justin checked out Wii Fit for a few minutes, but we spent more of our time playing Beatles Rock Band.  Amanda sang while Justin and I switched back and forth between guitar and drums.  Lisa, being very pregnant and all, didn’t have the energy.

My Xbox 360 is going green again, which isn’t a good thing in this case.  It means the video card is about to go out again.

Anyway, the Hauensteins left around 9:30 I think and Amanda and I watched an episode of Community before she went to bed.

On a different note, I talked to my friend Jason Revill today.  Their big dog, Maggie, went missing a few days ago.  They don’t know if their neighbor might have something to do with it or if someone just picked her up or if she’s just gone or what.  To boot, Sophie, their little dog, is not doing well.  Jason said they’re thinking they’ll put her down next week.  I remember when they first got her.  Jason said they’ve never not had a dog (I remember Norman and Winston before Sophie and Maggie) and Andy, Jason’s dad, doesn’t think he wants to go through getting another one and losing it again.  I really feel for them.

Zach Dotsey