Zach Dotsey

We had another good night of sleep last night.  In fact, we went ahead and woke Milly up at about 3:00.  She was a little fussy at the time, but she wasn’t fully awake.  Amanda figured it would be better to go ahead and get her started on a feeding before she was full-on crying.  She woke us up herself around 6:30.  We went back to sleep and woke up again around 9:00.  Just like yesterday, Milly’s been eating every couple of hours.

I did a bit of work in the nursery today, hanging up a thing Amanda’s grandfather made so we could put up the mobile, putting up a couple hooks and two curtain rods to hang the curtains that Karen’s friend, Eleanor, made.

We had a doctor appointment in the afternoon.  The nurse took Milly’s temperature (rectally), and Milly demonstrated her displeasure by kicking herself clear off of it.  Of course it had to go right back in.

She was pretty inconsolable after that though.  She wouldn’t calm down for anything, even when Amanda tried to feed her again.  After a while she did take some food though, and eventually calmed down.

After that Amanda and I went to Target to pick up a few things.  This was the first time we used the stroller, but it was also the first time Milly has gone shopping anywhere.  She slept through it though, so I guess she wasn’t too impressed.

I had talked to both Adam and Michael about going to the beach, so when I got home I unloaded the stuff we bought and then, after a few minutes, headed back out to Wrightsville Beach.  I talked with Barry Frazelle on the way out though, and when I asked if there was any surf out he asked if I had a boat, because if I had a boat I could go skiing.  I told him that maybe Michael and I could take turns paddling real hard and pulling the other on some skis, since I don’t have a boat.  So I turned around and headed back.

When I got home I discovered that Milly had had an episode similar to last night’s, though not quite as messy.  With this one the mess came out.  I think with last night’s there’s still a faint stain.

Karen’s sticking around one more night.  She’s been so helpful, cleaning up, making our yard nicer, helping out with Milly and so forth.  My sister, Erin Dotsey, is coming to visit Mills tomorrow.  She’s been really excited ever since she found out we were pregnant.  I mean, a lot of people have, but she’s been even more excited than I would have thought she’d be.  I think Kyle and Lorin Van Zandt are coming by tomorrow too.  We tried to get up with Nick and Amy Warkentien today, but we just didn’t manage to do it.

I think I’ll be ready to start getting back into work on Monday.

Zach Dotsey

I got this from Stanton Pickens, Amanda’s cousin, earlier today.  Thanks for putting it together for us, Stanton!

We got word that Margaret “Maggie” Anne Millard was born yesterday at 6:19pm at seven pounds, thirteen ounces to Kevin and Lauren Millard after a purported 36 hour labor!  Anyway, welcome to the world, Maggie Millard!  Little girl’s got some dark hair!  I’m sure she’ll be playing in that room above some.

I had a meeting this morning, and since it finished around lunchtime I called Amanda to see if she wanted to do lunch.  I stopped by Michael’s apartment and he came along too.  Amanda brought Cyra Sherburn from work and we all ate outside at Ken’s Bagels across from the mall.

After work Amanda and I went to Lowe’s to get some handles for the window seat (which was installed after the interactive image was taken and is now where the stroller in front of the window is) then grabbed some BoJangle’s for dinner on the way to small group.  We finished up the book we were working on tonight, although it was mostly a review so we rambled a bit, discussed all the new people asking about joining a small group and talked about what to study next.  Of course, Amanda and I may or may not be at next week’s meeting.

There was an opossum in the backyard tonight.  Harvey was barking a bunch and jumping around one spot near the hammock.  After I got him to come inside I went back out with a flashlight to see what he was fussing about and it was an opossum.  The rat-like white face was glowing at me in the flashlight’s beam.  I went to get the camera to take a picture of it, but it left before I got back.

Yes, I’ve seen plenty of opossums in my time and nearly got my hand bitten off of one that was hanging out  in a bag of dog food in the barn on Johnson Mill one time.  I just don’t see them in my backyard very often.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I went to church this morning, as we generally do on Sunday mornings, then did a little running around.  First we went to Target to look at a rug she thought about getting yesterday.  We really need something to break up all the space in the nursery but I didn’t want to spend a crapload of money on something we wouldn’t be able to wash that Bruce would very likely, at some point, pee on.  We ended up getting one that wasn’t fuzzy and could have been a foot longer and wider, but it’s colorful and matches the room pretty well, so it works.

We don’t need shelves anymore- Amanda got some yesterday.  She ended up going with a rolling framework that accommodates hangers and hanging shelves.  She also got a hamper that fits in it.  Pretty handy.

After that we went to Toysaurus (or Toys R Us- it’s a term I picked up from my friend Jason Revill, who in turn had picked it up from his sister-in-law, Crystal Revill).  We were returning a bouncy seat because one of the pieces seemed to be messed up and wouldn’t go together.  Amanda (in particular) and I both had tried pretty valiantly last Saturday to get that last piece together, but it just wouldn’t go.

We cleaned a little then Amanda fretted over organizing the nursery (at least that’s what I always assume she’s doing in there, since it’s all finished up).  I tried to nap upstairs but Amanda asked me to do a few things, so I eventually went to nap on a couch downstairs, but then the dogs kept wanting attention and when someone called on the phone Amanda walked around talking at her normal inside voice (which isn’t akin to other people’s inside voices) so I eventually gave up.

Stanton wanted to see the house, so he stopped by on his way back to Chapel Hill.  While he was hanging out Michael showed up and so did Phil Mercer, Amanda and Michael’s dad, who had built and brought us a window seat for the dormer in the nursery.  It was nice of him to not only finish it up so quickly, but to make a special trip for it.

Stanton and Phil left after a little bit and the rest of us headed over to La Casa Frazelle to celebrate Hannah Frazelle’s 20th birthday.  (Her actual birthday is tomorrow.)  It was pretty flat out, but Michael and I saw a couple ridable sets when we went to check the surf so we figured we’d go on out and give it a try.  We only had about an hour and a half before dinner, so I convinced Amanda to let me take the new camera out with me, ostensibly so I could keep track of the time.  The baggies I wore today fortunately didn’t have wax in the pocket.

It was, indeed, pretty flat out, not to mention mushy to the point that a lot of the waves that did come in had no power at all behind them.  I caught a couple fun ones though.  Michael was about to catch the best wave he had an opportunity to get at one point when a kite surfer skimmed by and cut him off.  It wouldn’t have been such a pissy thing to do except the guy literally had the whole entire ocean to play in and he ended up cutting Michael off on one of the very few waves he could have caught in the time we were out there.  The guy sailed on by a minute later and apologized at least.

We went in and were ready to eat by 6:00 and ate with the Frazelles plus Hannah’s boyfriend, Christian Black, and a friend of Kirsten’s.

Aunt Robbie called me on the way home to see how things were going, check in on Amanda and the like, being pregnant and all.

Back home, Amanda spray painted the shelves for the window seat while I stopped over at Bonnie and Dave Narron’s to see if they had a lawn seeder I could use in the next few days (which they don’t- Dave threw it out a few months ago).  Amanda came over too after a bit and we socialized.  The had gutted their living room and were remodeling it.

Dave and a friend had caught some nice-sized fish today so I took a picture for them.

Zach Dotsey

I thought this would be a nice spot to put pictures of the (completed!) nursery.

This week Milly should be about twenty inches long and seven pounds or so.  She’s shedding the lanugo and vernix and producing surfactant, which will keep the air sacs in her lungs from sticking together.

Amanda’s definitely ready for Milly to get here.  She has to get up and pee a lot and can’t sleep very well anyway.  Milly’s pretty much run out of room, so she’s poking and jabbing Amanda a lot and her feet are hanging out in Amanda’s ribs a lot.  Yeah, Amanda’s miserable, which gives us all just one more reason to look forward to Milly’s arrival.  (Like we needed any more reasons to be excited!)

I went downstairs at 6:00 to let Bruce out to pee and decided to stay downstairs on the couch.  Nick and Amy Warkentien were coming by soon to drop off Eli.  Nick works at Port City Community Church so he was going to be busy, well, working at church for half the day and Amy was scheduled to run a camera this week, so she was going to be busy just as long as Nick.  To that end, Amanda and I agreed to watch Eli until they were done.  And thus, Eli continued his role as our practice baby today.

I think we confused some people as we walked into the church.  Amanda is very obviously still pregnant and I was carrying Eli in the car seat.  Amy joined us to check Eli into Grow Zone and explain the situation.  After the 8:30 service Amanda and I actually were scheduled to help with Grow Zone.  When Amanda finished checking kids in she got Eli out of his room so Amy could feed him then they put him back in.  After we finished with all that we took him by the Green Room (where the production people and the band hang out in between services) and hung out there for a little bit.

While we were in there I heard, “Zach Zach Zach!”  It was Kirsten Paschal, who had brought our baby shower gift with her and wanted to go grab it before she forgot.  It turned out to be a blanket that Amanda was really hoping someone would get.

We went back home and cleaned up a bit.  Eli got a little fussy, but he wasn’t too bad when I gave him some attention.  He even napped for a little bit.  I was sitting on the front porch swinging with him when his parents arrived.  The house got a little busy after that.  Michael came over to meet up with me and go surfing then his and Amanda’s mom, Karen, came too.  We visited for a bit then Michael and I took off to Wrightsville Beach for some surfing while the Warkentiens all headed home and Amanda and her momma went shopping for drape material or some such.

Michael decided to go surfing bareback today, and I think he did alright with it.  The water’s definitely warming up.  The waves were pretty good, although still a little mushy.

After surfing, Michael and I were a bit hungry.  I called Amanda to talk food, and since she and Karen were at Target I suggested eating someplace in that general area and decided on Outback, since we had a  gift card for it.  Surprisingly, there was no wait at all and Michael and I beat Amanda and Karen there by a good little bit.  I was going to get my traditional Outback meal of cheese fries, Alice Springs chicken (sans mushrooms) and a Chocolate Thunder from Down Under, but sadly I couldn’t fit in the dessert- I was stuffed.

Karen picked up our tab so Amanda and I could use the gift card (which she’d given us in the first place) on a date at some point.

After we ate Karen took Michael to get an organizer thing (he has no place for most of his clothes) and Amanda and I went for a walk in the neighborhood.  We were just about back to the house when Karen and Michael showed up.  Michael took off after that and the rest of us went up to work on the nursery.  Amanda finished touching some stuff up and put things away while Karen did some detail work on the drawings with a Sharpie.  I put the crib together.  Once we had that Amanda and Karen put the crib bumper in it, along with some pillows and sheets.  The nursery is (I think) officially done.  Milly, feel free to come on out now.

Zach Dotsey
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Went to Lowe’s this morning and got a whole new doorknob.  It was actually about the same price as buying the part I was looking for, which is nice because they didn’t have one that matched exactly what I needed.  I happened to mention to the guy who was helping me look for the part that the only bad thing about getting a whole new doorknob was that I didn’t want a separate key for just the backdoor.  He said they could actually take care of that, so after I let Amanda pick out what style she wanted I watched the guy take apart the lock and make it fit the house key on my ring.  I never realized how complex a simple door lock is.

Amanda and I rode separately to Lowe’s so I could take off from there to meet up with Michael to go surfing.  We were out there for a little while and it wasn’t too bad.  A tad mushy, but there were some nice sized waves and we had fun enough.

I got home a little after 1:00 ready to head to Richlands as soon as I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Amanda took over making my sandwich then went a little pregger crazy on me concerning the way I make my sandwiches and the fact that if there’s an end piece I like to have it on the outside of the sandwich, which messed up the “easier” way she was making it.  We got past it quickly though.

I wanted to take a drink with me so I put some juice in a free sippy cup Amanda got from a baby expo she went to with Nick and Amy Warkentien while I was in Costa Rica then we got in the Jetty and headed to her parents’ house.  The sippy cup was obnoxious because you couldn’t get much out of it and it made a noise after every sip.

Speaking of Nick and Amy, Nick borrowed our lawn mower.  His riding mower is messed up and they’re having a bonfire at their place on Memorial Day, so the poor guy is having to mow his (sizable) yard with a push mower.

When we got to Richlands I took a power nap on the couch in the sun room then we went to Jarrett McGowan’s BBQ at the First Baptist Church.  It was actually for him and a few other people who are graduating, but he just finished up law school, and he’s an old friend of Amanda’s.  I’ve only met him a couple times, but I forgot how much I like the guy.  He’s still got to take the bar, but after that I hope he does well wherever he ends up.  He’d like to be in Wilmington.

We got home around 7:30 or 8:00 I think.  (Thanks, Nick, for letting the dogs out while we were gone!)  I outlined stuff in the nursery and Amanda organized baby stuff.

Zach Dotsey

Today was a day of many, many finales.  The message at Port City Community Church titled Baggage finished today with a communion signifying that we let go of our own baggage, letting go of the things that haunt us from our pasts, in light of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

After church we went home and… take a guess.  Yes, we painted the nursery.  We took a break late in the afternoon to eat and ended up watching the final few episodes of Scrubs.  Man, I know I started watching that show a couple seasons late, but I did catch up on all of it and it has a soft spot in my heart, and like some of my favorite episodes, this one got me a little misty.

I think the send off they gave it was just about perfect.  I hear, however, that they decided to go ahead and bring it back.  I think this is a terrible idea.  It finished just how it should have finished, and if you start another season with mainly just Turk and Dr. Cox as the holdovers and focus on the newer doctors, it’s not going to be the same show.  Every episode was titled “My (Something)” and (with rare exception) was told from JD’s perspective.  It’s not Scrubs without Zach Braff.  This should definitely have been the series finale, not the season finale.

After watching Scrubs we had another finale- the finale of painting the nursery!  Yes, we are, at long, long last, finished painting the nursery.  Technically Amanda has a few more words to paint onto some signs and I might need to touch up a tree slightly, but really, it’s done.  Now we’ve got to do some outlining then Karen can come in and finish it up by Sharpie-ing in some details.  It feels good to have that finished.  Now we just need the crib to get here and Amanda can go ahead and have Mills.  (Yes, I’ve been calling her “Mills” lately now and then.)

Amanda went to bed after a little bit and, in order to clean up the DVR a little, I went ahead and watched the Smallville season finale.  Overall this season was alright.  It wasn’t great, but it was decent.  There was one thing that bugged me pretty bad about this finale though.  The whole season has built up to a showdown between Clark and Doomsday.  In the big fight scene, Doomsday is whomping our future Superman when Clark lunges at him and leaps miles away to some geothermal station with the intent of throwing him down this very deep hole then blowing it up to seal him in.  All you see is the landing of the leap then the explosions.  In the final scene Clark says he’s not sure how he survived.  Umm, because you’re invincible maybe?

They also killed Jimmy Olsen, which makes Clark decide that all the stuff he was fighting for, the good in humanity (because Davis, Doomsday’s human form, was who killed Jimmy, proving that Doomsday wasn’t the only bad part of him), is wrong.  So at the end he just turns his back on Chloe and walks out.  Meh.

If that wasn’t enough to call the day Finale Day, I also watched the Reaper finale, which may or may not be back for another season.  It’s one of those shows that I think is really pretty good but I hardly ever hear about.

Then, finally, one final finale.  After Reaper I watched the Parks and Recreation season finale.

Zach Dotsey
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