Zach Dotsey

This week went by pretty fast but today seemed to go pretty slow.  I got done most of what I wanted to get done, and it felt great not to feel as rushed as I’ve felt the past few weeks.

Amanda kept herself pretty busy today.  On top of keeping up with Milly she did a lot of cleaning today plus some household shopping and cooking.

Amanda’s mom’s birthday is Sunday and her sister, Anna Frazelle, has some sort of surprise lined up for her and for Amanda (an early birthday present) tomorrow.  Karen came here this evening with plans to stay the night and watch Milly while Amanda and I went out to eat, but we surprised her by having dinner for her.  Amanda’s dad, Phil, came without Karen knowing (although he showed up before she even got in the house) and Michael and Jenn arrived just a few minutes later.

Milly was hardly left alone, which she didn’t mind.  We ate dinner and cupcakes and Phil left to go back to Richlands while Milly was (not really) eating her dinner.  The rest of us played Puerto Rico after we got Milly down to sleep.  Amanda won by six points.  Michael (and Jenn, who wasn’t really playing but was ostensibly on Michael’s team) and I tied, but I had more money so I won the tiebreaker, leaving Karen in last place.

Zach Dotsey
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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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Neither Amanda nor I slept all that well last night.  We’d wake up just about any time Milly made a noise.  I’m sure she does it all the time, but it’s different being in the same room with her.  On top of that, it seemed like the dogs kept wanting to come and go in and out of the room.

Amanda and I went with Karen to the home of Peggy and Earl Lemons (Amanda’s grandparents) for the country breakfast they serve every Saturday.  We got to see their new car.  Their Taurus was giving them some trouble so they bought an Impala.  We put Milly down for a nap in Peggy and Earl’s room right before we ate and afterwards I went to check on her.  I decided to lie down with her and she turned and snuggled up on me.  It was so sweet.  The time in between was spent eating and debating etiquette.

We got back to the Mercer house around noon and gave Milly her lunch.  Amanda and Karen went back out to do some shopping.  After I put Milly down for a nap (she didn’t have a particularly long one at her great-grandparents’ house) Michael, Jenn and I played Puerto Rico.  I beat Michael by a point.  He would have beat me but he misunderstood the implications of one of his picks.  That was my first win at that game.

We played a little MarioKart and Amanda played some when she got home too, feeding Milly in between.  Peggy and Earl came over a little later to have dinner and celebrate Michael’s birthday, which is Monday.  We also watched NC State suck it up against Maryland, which I figured would happen since the Pack beat Duke a few days ago.  Texas, who started the week undefeated but lost to Kansas State earlier, lost to UConn.

Anyway, we had a great dinner of steak, potatoes, salad, apple sauce, green beans and more.  In attendance were Amanda and I, plus Milly after we’d mostly finished eating, Karen and Phil, Peggy and Earl and Jenn.  Plus Michael, of course, as it was his birthday we were celebrating.

9:00 came around and we turned on the Duke-Clemson game.  Now, Clemson humiliated Duke last year at Littlejohn Coliseum and held Duke to 47 points, which was the lowest score Duke had in a long, long time.  Clemson’s been mostly playing pretty well lately, and Duke’s been sucking it up on the road though they beat Clemson soundly a few weeks ago.  A loss would put a lot of doubt on the Blue Devils, but a win would show that Duke can win in an opponent’s arena, and against tough competition at that.

The game was tied at a horrendously low 23 at the half.  Duke ended up winning 60-47 though.  (Remember that number, 47?)  Nolan Smith had a great game and Lance Thomas actually outscored Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer.  The second half was all Duke.

Michael is sitting across from me now, playing with his new iPod Touch.  He had a problem updating iTunes, which he needed to do to register his Touch and ended up just formatting his computer to get it to work.  Well, it works now and he’s looking at games to download for it.

Zach Dotsey

I had a bit of running around to do this morning.  I left the house around 9:30 and went over to Michael’s apartment to put his cats in their carriers because the apartment was getting sprayed around 10:00 and it was thought best for their health if they were not allowed to go sniffing around the insecticide for a bit.  After I got them up (Mooo! was no problem, but Goat struggled a bit) I picked up my paycheck, dropped it off at the bank then went to Port City Java to do some work.  I left a little before noon to let the cats back out and headed back home.

Back at the house Amanda had everything packed up, so I took care of a few quick work items then we headed off to Richlands.  Milly didn’t sleep at all on the trip, but she was good the whole way.

Once there we went to Arnold’s with Amanda’s dad then stopped by Richlands High to pay her mom a surprise visit.  It was a teacher’s workday, so no kids were around or anything.  On the way back to the Mercer homestead we stopped by to see Miss Eleanor.

Back at the house I took care of some work until breakfast-dinner.  Michael and Jenn showed up at some point before dinner and played some MarioKart.  I had to take some time out to play that.  I tried using the normal controllers that Michael brought, but I’m so used to to using the Wiimote that I got some controls mixed up.

After dinner and eating we let Milly hang out for just a little bit.  She took a few more small crawls, but I’m not sure if Karen, whom we called every time she did it, got to see her in action.

After we got Milly down Amanda and I introduced Karen, Michael and Jenn to Puerto Rico.  We were planning on doing a round or two to teach it to them, because the game is really hard to explain without actually playing it, but we never started over.  Michael won, beating me by two points.  Every time we play that game I want to play again right after.  Hasn’t happened yet though.

Amanda came back downstairs after going up to bed.  Milly had woken up when Amanda was trying to get sheets and such for Michael from the room my whole clan is staying in, and doing it in the dark she ended up making some noise, and making some noise she woke Milly up.  She was pretty upset, but we held her for a bit and changed her diaper and she went right back down.  So far so good anyway.

So here’s something I’m really excited about.  Seth Holloman called today and asked if I’d be interested in going to the Duke-Florida State game on Wednesday and sitting front row for an extremely reasonable price.  Um, YEAH!  So he and I are heading to Durham on Wednesday.  Amanda’s a bit jealous, but she’s cool with it.

Zach Dotsey

It was actually about 28.5 hours, but rounding to 30 sounds better.  If you read yesterday, you know that Nick, Amy and Eli came over to hang out, have dinner and play some video and board games.  Nick and I ended up staying up kind of late playing MarioKart against people online.

When I woke up this morning at about 7:30 I could hear Milly talking to herself in the nursery.  I took care of the dogs then got her up at 8:00 to feed her then started working a little early.  Amy (with Eli), Amanda then Nick, in that order, woke up and the girls fixed the breakfast Amanda and I have been having when we have time to fix it lately: pancakes, eggs and apples turkey sausage.  We also had some more fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Milly and her Paw Paw

Amanda’s dad was in town getting a crown fixed, so he stopped by for a minute, mainly to see Milly I think.  I went out to get my paycheck and Nick went out to do a couple things he needed to do in the evening and brought some Little Caesar’s back here with him for dinner.

I’m looking forward to Milly and Eli being able to actually play together.  Right now you can put them near each other and they may interact some, but they don’t really entertain each other.  On the other hand, Harvey and Max had a blast wearing each other out, mostly in the backyard.  I noticed this morning that we have a very large new hole in the yard.  Nick said Max learned that from Harvey, so I don’t know if they were working on it together or not, but it’s there regardless.  I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it was just Harvey doing all the work.  I could see him showing that off to Max.

After we got the babies down to sleep at about 8:00 we played another game of Puerto Rico.  We all scored better than we did last night and since we all knew how to play it went a lot faster.  Nick won, followed by Amy then me then Amanda.

Nick and Amy hung around for just a little bit after that then took off.  Amanda was tired and went to bed after messing around on Facebook for a few minutes.  I should be more tired than I am right now.

Tomorrow we’re going to see Avatar with the Frazelles.  Duke’s playing Georgia Tech tomorrow, too, and there’s some overlap.  It should be a pretty good game and I’m going to miss, at least, the second half, so I’m just going to have to DVR it because we’ve been talking about going to see the movie with them for some time now.  I’m going to do my best not to check the score after the movie.  I always ruin games for myself that way.

Cyra has volunteered to watch Milly for us while we’re out and it’ll be her first time being babysitting for us.  There’s talk of also going out to see Sherlock Holmes with her and Billy tomorrow, too.  We’ll see what happens.

Oh, it didn’t snow here in Wilmington, by the way.  Seems to have snowed just about everywhere else in North Carolina though.

Zach Dotsey

Milly was up and babbling to herself at about 7:30 this morning, so she not only went to bed a little late, but she woke up early too.  By 9:00, which I remember because I got my automated reminder to send out a newsletter that goes out every Friday morning, we were passing out and opening presents.  Santa was good to all.  I got a few games, a Wii, a Wii Fit Plus, the entire run of Arrested Development and clothes.  Amanda got a 64GB iPod Touch, which I later got all set up, registered and authorized on the laptop and showed her how to use it.  For Milly’s first Christmas she got some clothes, a ball with music and lights that rolls itself around and those stackable rings that everyone had as a baby, although they’re now star shaped and light up with music.  One really cute thing she got was a glove with different animals on each finger and a small Old MacDonald Had a Farm book on the palm.

Milly didn’t make it through the whole gift-giving process.  She got a bit cranky and went to take a nap after opening her presents.  Well, she didn’t quite open all her presents on her own.  She usually got distracted by the feel of the wrapping paper and Amanda or I mostly took care of opening them for her.

Milly was up for our late breakfast, which was pancakes and bacon.  A little after that I decided to take a nap upstairs.  I was pretty tired because Michael and I had played Street Fighter on the PS3 until about 3:00 in the morning or so.  Anyway, I took Milly up with me and Amanda told me later that she checked in a couple times and Milly wasn’t asleep either time.  She was good, but I guess she got tired of hanging out with Sleeping Dad after a bit because she started fussing until I got up and went downstairs with her.

I set up the Wii and played Wii Play, a game that came with an extra remote.  It’s a bunch of minigames that are ultimately designed to orient someone with the remote, but there were a few games on it that were pretty fun.

After a bit we headed to Peggy and Earl’s.  It rained a lot while we were there, giving some roads a bit of minor flooding and the like.  Milly’s lack of sleep caught up to her while we were there and Amanda and I tried to soothe her and get her to go to sleep, but she just kept crying hard.  Eventually we decided to let her cry it out, but Kirsten hated hearing her upset and went into the room she was in and a few minutes later she had stopped crying.  Milly had to eat just a bit later, so we didn’t bother trying to put her back down until we got back to the Mercer house.

Back at the house we decided to play the Seinfeld-themed Monopoly game got.  It came down to Karen and Amanda.  Amanda ended up with more property before she conceded defeat, but Karen had a buttload of money and had a monopoly on the orange properties early on.

We’ll be heading to the Rouge tomorrow after doing the extended family thing in Cary.  Someone who is already at my parents’ house, quote possibly Adam, will be meeting us to take the dogs to my parents’ house so we don’t have to head all the way to Rougemont then to Cary then back to Rougemont.  I’m very appreciative of that.

I talked to Baba tonight.  She receive the photo book we got her and seems to really like it.  She said she’s been showing it off to everybody.

Zach Dotsey

It took me a while to get around to it, but I did get a little work done today.  I was able to work on one of the two items I wanted to make progress on, so that’s not too bad.

But you don’t care about what I did at work today, do you?  You want to hear about Milly’s first Christmas Eve.

Amanda went out and bought a few stocking stuffers, did some laundry and packed for our visits.  I gave Milly a bath in the baby tub inside the tub and she seemed to really enjoy it.  When I first put her in she was kicking her leg around a bit like she was enjoying watching the splashes.  There’s a plastic monkey on a cord attached to the baby tub that she always sucks on.  I call it her sea monkey, and she had fun with that, too.  She was almost laughing some.  She’s much easier to bathe now that she can sit up straight and stand up with support.  I can also pour water right down her head and over her face without it making her fuss.  That’s something that will help her, growing up at the beach and all.

We packed up the car with presents and such, basically everything we’d need for the weekend sans dogs, and headed on to the 3:00 service at Port City Community Church.  I invited my brother, Adam, to go along, but he was going to be at a showing of Avatar during that time.

The church service was nice.  It was packed, of course.  They didn’t have any of the children’s services today so there were a lot of kids in the main auditorium.  It was the first time Milly had been to grown up church since she’s been old enough to go to Grow Zone.  When she was smaller she would sleep through the loud music then fuss during the message.  Now she paid close attention to the music, I think because she liked all the lights and the big video screens, and the napped during the talking.  It wasn’t really a sermon, more like a remembrance of the meaning of Christmas and an explanation of how Communion fit into it.  All in all it was a very nice service.  All three services tonight were broadcast live on the internet too.  I think they’ve done that with a few services up to now, but tonight was the first one where they really got the word out I think.

I got to talking with an older woman who was sitting next to us before the service.  She took an interest in Milly and was holding her when the music started.  She seemed to really enjoy holding Milly, and Milly seemed to really enjoy playing with her gold watch, so I let her stay there until we all stood up.  Her oldest son is in Iraq, so I told her I’d pray for him tonight.

After church we picked the dogs up then headed to Beulaville to Amanda’s grandparents house.  I sat in the back with Milly on the way there so she could eat and when I saw a sign for Chinquapin I got in Milly’s face and said it and she laughed.  I kept doing it until she stopped laughing as hard, which took longer than I would have expected.  I like saying “Chinquapin.”  I say it as I imagine the locals would: Cheenka-pee-in.  Whatever- Milly likes the way I say it.

The Frazelles were already there and the Mercers arrived a little while after we got there.  Milly was, as usual, the star of the show.  Everybody got their time in playing with her before we put her down for a nap and ate a breakfast dinner.

She’s really working on getting up on her hands and knees, by the way.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she is crawling, at least a little, by the time we get back to Wilmington.

Milly got to open her very first Christmas present ever.  It was her first wrapped present, for that matter.  It was from the Frazelles and it was a copy of Where the Wild Things Are.  She got clothes from her great-grandparents.  Everyone else opened their presents after her.  I got a couple long sleeved graphic tees from Express (can’t go wrong with that for me) from the Frazelles and a button up shirt and jeans from Peggy and Earl.

Amanda and I realized that it was past 8:30 and therefore well past Milly’s bedtime so we took off.  We thought, as late as it was and as prone as she (like most babies) is to falling asleep in the car, that she would nod off, but she spent most of  the trip to Amanda’s parents’ house talking and making noises.  Once we got to the house and set up the pack & play Karen bought she went down pretty quick.

The pack & play, I might add, isn’t just for Milly.  It’s an investment in the future as we figure on having at least one more kid and one day Michael will probably have a few of his own.  Even though those things fold up pretty well, they do take up a good bit of space when traveling, so the fact that my mother-in-law bought one to keep at their house is much appreciated.

After everything settled down Phil went to bed and the rest of us, Amanda, Karen, Michael and I, played Wits & Wages, which Amanda picked up today while she was out as a present to both of us.  I continued my winning streak that started at Ben and Jessica Lambeth’s when they introduced the game to us for two games, but then Karen won one and Amanda won the two after that.  Undefeated no longer.  Oh well.

It’s now about time for Santa to be here, I suppose.  I’m looking forward to Milly playing with wrapping paper and trying to eat ribbon tomorrow.

Zach Dotsey