Amanda and I took some chicken pot pie over to Kevin and Lauren Millard’s house today as an excuse to meet the future friend of our impending daughter, Maggie Millard.

Maggie’s adorable.  Seeing her in pictures is one thing, of course, but meeting her and holding her was different, of course.  Eli’s gotten so big over the past few months that I about forgot how tiny a newborn is.  Of course we saw Lauren Nowak more recently, but she was having a tanning session (okay, UV rays for jaundice) so we weren’t able to hold her.

Anyway, we fed Kevin and Lauren (her mom and sister were there also) and talked about the delivery.  Poor Lauren was in labor for 38 hours!  I pointed out to her that that was nearly a full work week.  She was very kind to point out to Amanda that everyone’s labor is different, which I think was her way of trying to keep my little Pregger from dwelling on the possibility of such a long labor for herself.

I had all kinds of visions of Milly and Maggie growing up together.  Kevin said something about teaching her how to surf, which I said I could do with her, Milly and Eli.  But I also imagined the girls playing together and having birthday parties and spending the night at each others’ houses.  They’ll be so close in age and the Millards live I’d say no more than 2.5 miles from us, so it’s hard to imagine them not hanging out.

There was a bit of an adventure at La Casa Millard when we went there when Kevin found two snakes breaking the law up against the front of his house.  First off, they were trespassing.  They were also copulating in public and exposed themselves in front of minors.  They weren’t poisonous and Amanda advocated letting them live, but Kevin’s neighbors chopped them up with shovels.  Meh, it is what it is.  They eat rats and voles and other poisonous snakes, but then they were about, I don’t know, maybe not quite four feet long.  At least they got to go out in fine fashion, though one did look pretty pissed to be interrupted.  I’d guess that was the male.

Amanda’s grandparents, Peggy and Earl Lemons, stopped by on their way home from some doctors appointments.  Peggy’s legs are swollen and so they went to see if someone could figure out why.  Earl’s guess is that it’s a case of seven-seven.

That took me a minute, when he said that.

In other medical news, Anna Frazelle had surgery on her knee.  There was a piece of cartilage that had broken off and was floating around in her knee area.  It apparently took a while to get to her surgery, but she came on home and is expected to recover very quickly.

Speaking of aunts, Amanda’s Aunt Ona and Uncle Peter Pickens are staying at Wrightsville Beach for the weekend, so we’re meeting them for lunch tomorrow.  Actually, I think they’re coming over here first to check out the nursery, then we’re all going to grab some food.

Oh, happy birthday, Amy Warkentien!  She and Nick had a date night tonight.

Amanda mentioned to me that she’s trying not to read too much into other people’s pregnancy experiences.  For example, her grandmother mentioned that right before she had both Karen and Anna, she had a period of time where a lot of the pregnancy feelings went away, and Amanda was feeling really good this morning.  She was having trouble going to sleep tonight though, so we took a warm bath.  I told Kevin that we’re trying not to be too focused on Sunday, the due date, but I know that if Sunday comes and goes we’re going to be a bit disappointed.

Zach Dotsey