Zach Dotsey

As good as Milly was yesterday, she decided to make up for it today.  Then again, I thought she was making up yesterday for the day before that, so who knows?  She was up a little early, didn’t finish her bottle and was fussy enough, despite that I tried several things to make her happy, that I was able to put her down for her nap just a little before 9:30.  She usually goes down closer to 10.

Work seems to slowly be getting back to how it was before a week or two ago.  That’s good in that I get to make money, but it would also be nice not to feel stressed out for having plans at 6:00.

Plans at 6:00 were going to Port City Community Church for a meeting about Grow Zone, the children’s ministry that Amanda and I both volunteer at.  There are some big changes coming up that they wanted to announce, first and foremost among them was that everyone who helps out in the rooms is going to be moved to doing it every week.  I can see why that’s a good idea, as it gives the kids more stability and the chance to build better relationships with them and their parents, but it gives me a lot to think about.  I also volunteer on the production team once a month, plus hardly a month goes by when Amanda and I don’t either have someone in town for the weekend or we’re out of town ourselves.  We’ll just have to pray about it and see where we’re lead.

Kirsten came over early to watch Milly while we went to the meeting and Barry came to pick her up at about 7:30, just a few minutes before Joel, Mia and Felix came over for small group, bearing a birthday cake.  I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think I’ve had more birthday cake for any other birthday in my life.  Anyway, they were the only other couple who could make it tonight, so we ate cake, chatted and breezed through our discussion.  We’ve only got one chapter left in our study on Romans.

Zach Dotsey

Small group was great tonight.  I just thought I’d go ahead and mention that.  I don’t usually put a whole lot of detail about our small group meetings because a lot of it can be personal for people in it, but everyone shared some stories tonight, and it just felt like such a great night.  You know you’ve got a good group when people feel comfortable and trusting enough to be able to talk about deeply personal things.

The weather was nasty today.  It was cold and it rained hard.  I got to go out in that weather to pick up a check halfway across town.  The good part of that is that we were able to make some big changes we finished up a couple weeks ago for a website live.  The bad part is I had to drive through all that mess.

We had a good time this evening.  The Chick-fil-A at Mayfaire was celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday by having the Cat in the Hat (or some chick dressed as him) there along with some birthday cake and balloons and the like.  Amanda and I went early and grabbed some food for ourselves and the place quickly filled up with kids.  Milly was looking all around, taking it all in.  I don’t know if she’s yet been someplace that had so much going on in such a small area.  Amanda loosely tied a balloon to her highchair and she was very entertained by that.  She was really intrigued with the Cat in the Hat once s/he made hir way over to Milly.  I think she mostly liked the red and white striped hat.

We also let Milly have some small bites of cake, a couple of them with a minuscule amount of icing on that.  Needless to say, she really liked that.

After we left Chick-fil-A we went to the Frazelle house to pick Kirsten up and bring her back to our place to babysit Milly.  Anna usually brings her, but since we were over halfway there, we didn’t see the sense in having Anna go all the way out to our house.  We hung out there for a couple minutes and Milly got passed around a bunch.

Kirsten told us that Milly was good for her tonight, which is good because I had to ask Milly why she was acting bratty this morning.  She ate her first four ounces really fast, but then refused to eat the other two ounces I made for her.  As we usually do, I made oatmeal out of the leftover formula, but she was having none of that, so I wasted a good bit of both formula and oatmeal.  She also would not hold still at all while I was trying to change a gooey poopy diaper.  But she was sweet the rest of the day.

Carolina beat Miami tonight.  Figures.  Way to build the Heels’ confidence before the Duke game, Wake and Miami!  I suppose it’s alright though.  It’ll get their hopes up before Duke (hopefully) obliterates them this Saturday.

Zach Dotsey

Usually when I’m feeding Milly and I have to go away from her in her high chair for a minute, like to fix the food or rinse out a bowl or something, I’ll give her a few puffs to occupy her time.  I leaned down near her face when I got back to her this morning, and she had two puffs in her hand.  She stuck her arm out so I took a puff with my mouth.  The next one, though, she specifically put in my mouth, and she seemed pretty entertained by it.

Harvey’s been licking his foot a lot lately and it looks like one of his nails (claws?) has split or something.  Amanda finally called the vet today and they knew exactly what was going on when she started describing it.  She’s taking him by Dineen tomorrow afternoon.

When Kirsten came over to watch Milly tonight Amanda told her that Milly had bigger nipples, or maybe she said we gave Milly new nipples.  Either way, she was talking about putting nipples with larger holes on the bottles, but she should have mentioned the word “bottle” somewhere.

Amanda and I stopped by Sam’s to pick up some soap and Similac on the way to small group.  At the checkout line I was talking about how cool it was that Milly can be made to laugh so hard by smacking her in the face with a pair of folded socks, then I hit Amanda with my jacket sleeve, which made her laugh a little.  Then I saw a gift card with a Thomas Kinkade picture on it and I remarked how amazing it was that he could paint something like that on such a small card.  For some reason that struck Amanda as really funny, like the long, silent laughs where you keel over or need to lean on something.  I don’t know if it was just that or that way I kept looking at the gift card in wonder or the fact that I kept moving slightly to be obnoxiously close to her or what, but for some reason she was just beyond tickled.  The lady in line behind us even told her to be careful she didn’t split wide open.  Whatever the deal was, I really enjoyed it.

Small group was pretty fun tonight.  We got to talk about the two things you’re not supposed to talk about: politics and religion.  Mike had been waiting for this chapter for a while.  On top of that, Joel and Mia were pretty entertaining.  I don’t know what exactly happened but there was some confusion in feeding Felix (who seems to have already gotten longer) and they both ended up in the kitchen.  There was some sort of crash or splash noise then Joel saying, “Mia!” then another splash noise.  The second splash noise was a cup of coffee being knocked over.  You had to be there though- it was one of those things where everything seemed to be going wrong and then it all reached a climax and everybody just had to laugh.

The ladies discussed going out some time next month and possibly putting together a mom’s small group.  Sarah’s in one now.

I’m pretty tired right now, but I think I’m going to do a bit of work.  There were a couple things I wanted to get done that didn’t get done today.  It was a good day though, as I had a (successful) meeting with a company from Hampstead.  We met at the Port City Java in Porter’s Neck, but it was nice out so we didn’t even go in.

Zach Dotsey

Work has been full of a bunch of small update things that I do, thinking that I can knock them out then move on to the big things that need to be done.  Unfortunately, it seems like every time I finish up the small stuff, more small stuff comes in.  So today I made a list of all the things that needed to be done and put them in order.  Hopefully this system will work out alright.  We’ve got five or six sites, whether transfers, redesigns or new designs, that went live in the last couple work days or should be going live by the end of the week.

Milly was good for me today, so that helped.  I didn’t have to put her down for a nap until almost 10:00.  She rarely makes it that long before getting tired and fussy.

Anna came over a few minutes early to drop Kirsten off to babysit Milly tonight because she wanted to come in and see her too.  Kirsten told us that Milly did great for her, although she sneezed a few times while feeding her, which always makes a mess.

Small group was fun tonight.  The reading was several chapters in Romans, but the discussion questions didn’t take all that long and so we spent a good bit of the night talking and joking around.

After we got home Amanda and I watched Lost then she went to bed.  Milly woke up and cried briefly.  The positive to that is that I got to tell her goodnight.

Duke and Carolina play tomorrow.  I hope I’ll be able to focus on work at least a little.

Zach Dotsey

After small group tonight Amanda and I came home to watch Lost.  Even though it was on past Amanda’s bedtime, she stayed up to watch it.  So here is the rundown of some of my initial thoughts.

• Juliette’s message to Sawyer (“It worked”) seems to obviously mean that the bomb worked, but how did she know?
• The bomb did work, because we’re now seeing the reality where the plane didn’t crash.
• But we’re also seeing a continuation of the reality where the plane did crash, meaning reality split.
• Desmond and Jack’s dad’s body disappeared from the plane.  What’s that mean?
• Sawyer is going to try to rip off Hurley.
• More Others?  Other Others?
• The spring water was dirty.  Was the because Jacob had been killed?
• Sayid was definitely dead, so I think he’s now Jacob.  Maybe the spring water will clear up next episode.

All in all it was a good episode, and I’m glad the show is back.  Time for some answers, although I’ve heard that some people will be upset with the finale so I’m guessing not everything will be answered.

Milly woke up two or three times last night.  We changed her feeding schedule on Sunday and she seems to have adapted well enough to it.  Maybe the problem is that I’m used to getting her up from naps at feeding time and she slept too much yesterday.  I made sure to get her up at normal times today.

Amanda had lunch with her grandparents (who later came by the house) and at least Anna and Kirsten from the Frazelle crew today after work.  Kirsten was disappointed that Milly wasn’t with her, but was looking forward to babysitting tonight.  It’s been a few weeks since Kirsten has watched Milly and she’s changed a good bit in that time.  After we got home from small group Kirsten said that Milly had been great.

Small group went well tonight.  We went through the chapter pretty fast and got off topic a bit more than usual even, but it was fun.  We had it over at the Kays’ house and got to see little Felix.  He hung out with us all pretty much the whole time, even if he was sleeping through most of it.

Zach Dotsey

The University of South Carolina will be hit with fines tomorrow for rushing the court, which the SEC does not allow.  Of course, it’s hard to fault them, since they just upset unbeaten #1 Kentucky.

I also watched the majority of Carolina at NC State.  I missed the first half of the first half from small group (which we had at our house tonight), and even though I’d recorded it I just watched it from where it was live, since I could already see the score.  And of course State didn’t bother playing like they did against Duke last week.  I’m upset at them for dropping that and giving Carolina back some confidence.  A loss to State tonight would have gone a long way in further breaking the Tar Heel spirit and would have made them questionable for the NCAA Tournament.  But no, State had to go and lose, of course.  Way to go, Wolfpack.

Milly was better today.  As far as firsts go, today was the first time she took herself down the hallway, which she did a couple times.

I’m nearly caught up with work again.  We’ll see how long that lasts, right?

Speaking of work, I went until about 9:30 last night.  I would have worked longer, but I was really tired for some reason.  Amanda was watching a Big Bang Theory rerun when I decided to put the laptop down, curl up against a pillow on the couch and snooze for a bit.  Amanda woke me up to go upstairs about a half hour later.

Milly continues to pull herself around all over the place.  Over the past day or two she’s also gotten better at feeding herself her puffs.  They’re little fast-dissolving, bland with a hint of flavor cereal-sized cracker things.  Amanda calls them crackers, I call them puffs.  They’re kinda puffy.  Anyway, over the past couple days she’s gotten to where she can usually grab one between her thumb and forefinger and put it in her mouth.  If she can’t quite get it to go in that way she’ll palm her face and sometimes that will get it in.  Of course, she just about as often drops it on the floor, which Bruce and Harvey don’t much mind.

I also noticed in the last couple days that Milly has made more complex noises now and then.  Changes in volume and pitch, I think.

I made the mistake yesterday of saying something about not being too busy at work, so of course I worked until about 9:00 tonight.  I did have a meeting that went much longer than I expected which pushed me back a bit, but at least it was profitable.

Last night Kansas State beat up-to-then undefeated #1 Texas.  I only watched the last few minutes of the game and they both played sloppy.  The Wildcats kept trying to let Texas back into the game, but the Longhorns declined time and again, and so now, should they win out the rest of the week, another team of Wildcats, that final undefeated team from Kentucky, will be #1.

I fell asleep on the couch, woke up around 3:00, turned off the TV and the lamp and pulled the covers back up over myself and Bruce, who was cuddling with me.  I woke up again when Amanda’s alarm went off upstairs and I went to bed then.  Amanda told me she’d rolled over to give me a kiss then realized that what she thought was me was just my pillow.

Mia and Joel headed to the hospital today to get Mia induced.  I texted Joel this evening and asked if he was having fun yet.  He said nothing was really happening yet.

Mike called me to tell me that Henry had a temperature (101 or 102, can’t remember which he said) and they were afraid Lauren might be sick too (or maybe just teething) but that one of them, he or Sarah, would try to make it to small group.  I told him to not worry about it and tend to the family.

I texted our other couple that nobody else was going to be able to make small group tonight.

At least I got to use the time to get some work done.

Amanda’s grandparents came by after an appointment of one kind or another for Earl.  I was away at my meeting for most the time they were here.  Earl has been wanting to come by since forever to build a little trim into the space between our counters and the stove, so he took care of most of that today.

Amanda ordered the board game Puerto Rico from Amazon.com last week or so and it came today.  She called me while I was out and informed me that she was afraid to open it because while the cover and the description on the back were in English, the picture of the game and pieces on the back had everything written in what she correctly guessed was German.  The return policy was that if something was opened you couldn’t return it, so Amanda called Amazon to ask them about it.  They told her to go ahead and open it and everything turned out fine.  That is, Amanda won’t be forced to learn German afterall.

Zach Dotsey