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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It was almost 70 degrees, but once you stepped out onto the beach you could tell it was a few degrees cooler on the sand.  Surfers could be seen up and down the strand, some walking back down the beach to counteract the drift as they headed back out to the frigid water, some sitting on their boards taking a break.  Of course still more were out past the breakers, waiting for a wave to catch, but it wasn’t as crowded as you’d think, thanks in large part to the water temperature.

Barry and I headed down shore a little.  I guess it was the temperature difference causing a fog, but everything in the distance was hazy.  There was a dredging ship off the south end of the island that looked like a castle rising out of the mist.

Today was the first day I have worn a hood while surfing, and it was the first time I wore my own gloves (which I picked up on the way to Anna and Barry’s).  All that along with my 4-3 wetsuit kept me pretty warm.  In fact, I was expecting to get cold at some point, but with the hood, even when I ducked a few waves I never felt like it was anywhere near unbearable out in the water.  The last time I went out surfing was probably a couple months ago and I was definitely out of shape.  The water was choppy and I had to fight to get out so I didn’t do a whole lot, but I caught a few waves.  The main thing was that I got out there, which will hopefully scratch my surfing itch for a little while.

Once I got out for good I sat and waited for Barry for a while before deciding to just head on in.  There weren’t many surfers out anymore and I figured (rightly) that I must have missed him on his way in.  As I was going to wash off my board I ran into Michael,  guy I’ve done Grow Zone with before, and talked to him for a minute or two.

Before all that Amanda, Milly and I went to church then picked up some bagel sandwiches from Atlanta Bread.  Back home we watched a bit of TV (The Soup and 30 Rock) before Barry texted me about the waves.  After we got back we put Milly down for a nap then watched Saturday Night Live while Amanda heated up some leftover white chili to eat.

We started watching Fringe, but I fell asleep.  I was actually planning on taking a nap before Barry texted me.  I caught most of the episode though, and it was a weird one.  It wasn’t weird in the way that Fringe deals with supernatural things, but in that it was listed as a new episode but obviously was out of continuity.  We guessed it was just an episode they taped but never got around to airing.

Once that was done and Milly was put to bed Amanda and I watched Duke take on Wake Forest.  It was a very physical game with foul trouble all around.  The point differential stayed around four for the most part with the Blue Devils taking an eight point lead off a Jon Scheyer three pointer just before the half.  Wake fought back, but Duke ended up going off in the second half once again and the final score was 90-70.

There was a controversial call about halfway through the second half.  Mason Plumlee was going up for a fast break dunk and was fouled pretty hard by Wake’s Ish Smith and ended up hurt for a few minutes.  While I think the foul was out of control, I don’t think it was an intentional foul, which is what it was ruled, even after review.  Duke was already starting a run at that point, but as my brother-in-law pointed out multiple times via text throughout the rest of the game, it was at a debatably crucial point.  Duke was already starting to gain momentum and that helped, but it didn’t help to the tune of 20 points.

Jon Scheyer was kept to single digits (nine), but Kyle Singler had 21, Nolan Smith had 20 and Miles and Mason Plumlee combined for 30 (19 coming from Miles!).  Duke also only hit four of 13 threes.  What’s promising about this and the last game is that Duke is no longer a team that “lives by the three and dies by the three.”  Once they do start hitting them again though, man, they’ll be deadly because of another great thing shown in this game: Duke can score in the post.  The third big point that I am really excited about it just how tough this Duke team is.  The Demon Deacons were very physical.  Mason got hurt and Kyle got fouled once and landed on his face.  6′4″. 190 pound Andre Dawkins went up to block and foul the very physical 7′0″ 230 pound Chas McFarland.  It’s a tough team that does not back down.

Zach Dotsey

Amanda and I volunteered at Grow Zone after going to the 9:00 service at church today.  There were a lot of boys in my room today, which often leads to a bit of wildness, but everything went pretty well.

I was thinking of doing several things when we got home- raking a bit perhaps, things of that nature.  Instead Amanda and I had lunch and got sucked into watching The Soup then Saturday Night Live.  Taylor Swift hosted.  I had really low expectations for her, but she wasn’t that bad.  I nodded off though and missed the last skit or two.

At about 4:00 we got to Matt and Melissa Davis’ house.  Melissa was throwing a cookout birthday party for Matt.  There were a number of babies there.  Two of them, in fact, were even younger than Milly.  It was also the first time Milly got to hang out with their daughter, Penelope, and by hanging out what I mean is them sitting on a blanket together.  They did grin at each other though, which was cute.

Once we got back I worked on removing the oven from its spot in the kitchen.  It wasn’t really all that tough, but I had to pry apart a few pieces of wood as it was built into the counter.  To my momentary consternation I discovered, after pulling it out some, that the oven was tethered to the wall via a power cord, instead of having a plug.  After a little consideration I realized that I could remove the back panel and saw where the cord connected.  I just had to unscrew some nuts to disconnect the wires.

So I found a wrench and started unscrewing the nuts.  Amanda, who was on the phone at the time, heard an electric buzz.  She didn’t hear me yelp a four letter word and drop the wrench.  So yeah, I had 220 volts pass through the right side of my body.  I felt a little burn going from my fingers down to my right foot.  Oddly, my right nip was a bit extra tingly.

An electrician I am not, but I really should have known better than to touch metal to a live cord like that.  The next thing I did was to find the breaker for the stove and turn it off.

I was fine though.  It obviously hurt when the electricity ripped through me and I tingled for a bit, but I felt fine shortly after.

In case you’re wondering, I was removing the oven because we’re getting a new one.  We’ve had a new used one on the porch for a bit, but Amanda’s grandparents decided, for some reason, to buy us a brand new one.  It’s supposed to be a surprise for Amanda, and I haven’t actually told her yet, but she knows.  It’s being delivered tomorrow.

Milly’s got a few new things lately.  She looks like she’s trying to crawl, which we can tell because when we put something just out of reach of her she hitches one leg up like she’s trying to push herself, but she’s not quite kicking off.

She also started making a new noise yesterday.  She starts off kind of opening and closing her mouth without a noise then works a “ba ba ba ba” into it.  Sometimes it’s more of a “ma ma ma ma,” which Amanda uses to claim that “Mama” is her first word.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it yet, but for a while we’ve had a little game we play where I’ll tap Milly’s mouth with my finger then she’ll start to say, “aaaaa,” so it comes out as “ah-ba-ba-ba-ba,” which seems to entertain us both, though she gets bored of it pretty easily.

Zach Dotsey

Milly was very happy this morning.  She woke up talkative and it was easy to make her laugh a lot today.  She drooled a lot though.  She took a long nap or two too, which made this one of our easier Mondays thus far.  I was able to get a good bit done.

Milly’s nose has been a bit stuffy, so Amanda came home after her full day of work and put the nose plunger to it, which upset our baby something fierce.  She was annoyed for a while about it.

We went to watch How I Met Your Mother at Billy Supplee’s tonight with him and Cyra Sherburn.  Amanda and I picked up some Little Caesar’s on the way for dinner.  We also watched this past weekend’s The Soup and Saturday Night Live, both of which Amanda and I had already watched.  SNL was hosted by Gerard Butler with gyrations, err, dancing, that is, music by Shakira, and I’d say it was the best episode of a relatively weak season so far.

Zach Dotsey

I’m just about finished with another website today.  I’ve got a few minor things I think I need to tweak I think, but it’s pretty close to done.

Amanda got to take a nap today.  That’s notable in that she generally has trouble napping.  Milly napped along with her, but she was sleeping on her side, which I don’t think she’s done before.

I was playing with Milly today while she was lying in her pack & play and I started sort of sticking my tongue out, sort of flicking it, and making a noise, which seemed to entertain her.  After a little bit of it, she started sticking her tongue out too, looking like she was imitating me.  Michael came over later for dinner with the girl he’s seeing, Jenn, and he was doing these spit noise things with his tongue at Milly and she looked like she was trying to imitate him then too.

Jenn seems like a nice girl.  She was a little quiet, but I think she was nervous meeting us.

Milly was really sweet going to bed.  She was just in such a good mood after I fed and changed her.  I love that she’s happy when she’s going to bed, but I hate leaving her then too.

My parents got in tonight for a visit.  This is only the second time my dad had gotten to see Milly, the first time being when we were still in the hospital.  We had a good time talking and visiting with them and they got to see Mills for her 11:00 feeding.  After that we introduced them to The Soup.

Zach Dotsey
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Milly is five weeks old today, and even though today was the first time we were able to keep her in the main auditorium for a full church service, next week will be her first week in Grow Zone.  We’ve had a few people ask if we’ll be nervous about leaving her in there, and I really don’t think we will be.

After church we stopped by Target and Hardee’s.  Hardee’s was for some breakfast biscuits and Target was so I wouldn’t have to use Amanda’s deodorant anymore, as I have the past couple days.

We got home and Amanda and Milly took a nap.  I probably should have.  Instead I watched Kings.  Did you know I like that show?  I think this week’s was the final episode, which, of course, ended on something of a cliffhanger.  Left me wanting more, that’s for sure, and because NBC didn’t market the show properly to give it a fair shake that’s where I’ll be left with it forever.  Blah!

Anyhoo, after Amanda woke up we fed Milly, stopped by Smoothie King and went to Wrightsville Beach.  Adam and Michael were already there and the three of us surfed for a few hours.  It was a lot of fun.  The waves were of a decent size and I got all kinds of drops and turns today, as did Michael.  Adam, who is pretty inexperienced, got to stand up some so I’d say we all had a pretty good day.

In particular I enjoyed the fact that I had to work a lot of the waves to get good results.  For example, there was this one wave that I took on a right, and I was able to ride the crest of it all the way to the shore, but I had to keep myself turned a certain way to do that.  Then there was another one, a left, that I was able to work a pretty good lateral distance.  It was probably, outside of Costa Rica, the farthest I’ve ever traveled down shore on a wave before.

But the biggest deal at the beach today was that it was Milly’s first beach trip.  It wasn’t scorching hot today, so Amanda took her out in the sling then went for a walk with Anna for a bit.  It’s not like Milly could actually do anything there, like even play in the sand yet, but it’s cool that she got to go out there today and see what the beach is.  I expect she’ll spend a lot of time out there over the years.

After we got back home I went to Nick and Amy Warkentien’s house to clean their Gipper cat litter and make sure he had plenty of food (which he did).  Originally Nick was going to come back tomorrow, but that was before his sister, Missy, died and they had to make plans for everything surrounding that.

Shortly after I got back home it was time to put Milly to bed, which wasn’t an easy task tonight.  Amanda put her down once then I went upstairs two more times to re-swaddle her and try to get her to sleep again.  She didn’t actually get to sleep for good until almost 9:00.  Hopefully that’s not an indicator of how the rest of the night will go.

After we did finally get Milly to go down we watched an episode of I Survived, featuring a guy who was attacked by a great white shark, a woman who was raped and strangled for five hours by a friend’s husband with her three-year-old son in the room and a woman who had been shot in the head by airplane hijackers.  It’s amazing what people can survive and how they can cope afterwards.

Actually, we may have watched that while Amanda was feeding Milly.  Regardless, we did watch The Soup after she went to sleep, then Amanda followed.

Amanda came up with a good idea tonight, and that was to take the container of formula plus two empty bottles upstairs so that neither of us will have to go downstairs to prepare the formula when Milly feeds tonight.  Good thinking, woman!

Zach Dotsey

All of my family, that is, is now gone to Kentucky, not me.  Mom and Erin drove to Charlotte and picked up Andra and Addy and Adam got a flight from Wilmington to Lexington (only $10 more than going to Louisville- well worth the extra few dollars!).  I’ve gotten to where I’m cool with being here.  I expressed that to Amanda’s grandfather when he called and offered his condolences.

Earl told me that he had missed his grandfather’s funeral.  He had just gotten back on his ship a few days earlier after being on leave and they didn’t tell him for a few days.  That had to have been hard.  There’s something about going through everything at least mentally at the same time as the rest of your family.  Of course, Earl was also on a ship when his first was born, so at least I get one of the two.

Speaking of the firstborn, Amanda and I discussed it and I think we’re going with Omelia Mae.  Adding Maeleigh to it, while I like the name, just sounds off to me.  We could change the Melia part (we at least added the O), but then we’d either have to just name her Milly (we’re sold on that) or it would sound like you’re mispronouncing Maeleigh.

In other Milly news, she’s still not here, although we feel like it’ll be before long.  There’s been no real indication or anything, and it could just be that we’re just getting antsy, but we both feel like it’ll be soon.  Of course, it will be soon, one way or another, it’s just a matter of degree.

I’ve been listening to Rhett Miller as much as I can, which I tend to do when I get a new CD.  I don’t think there’s really a bad song on it, although Happy Birthday Don’t Die doesn’t quite fit in with all the rest of the album, in my opinion.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  Some of the songs sound very Old 97’s.

The last thing I need
Is another girlfriend
Two’s enough for me
Two is enough
And you would make three

I did another design that I was pretty happy with today.  The support side of the job has been a little slower lately and I brushed up on all the sales, which has given me a little bit of time to play with Photoshop a little, which I’ve been enjoying.  Not having gotten my fix with just work, I played around a bit with making some Twitter backgrounds, which could actually turn into a little more business money.

That’s about it for today.  Amanda came home and we watched the season finale of House plus an episode of The Soup from the DVR.  Bonnie Narron, our neighbor, took my car today so her husband, Dave, could do a few things with it.  He was going to fix the right blinker, which has been out for a week or so (probably just the bulb is my guess), give it an oil change and take a look at the window that doesn’t want to roll up and the air conditioning.  Lots of stuff, but at least the car’s paid off.

Exciting day, I know.  Maybe tomorrow will bring more excitement.

Zach Dotsey