Amanda stayed busy today and went out for a bit with Milly. I got quite a bit done, pretty much finishing up two new websites. They both might have a little tweaking to do, but I think for all intents and purposes, they’re done.
I mentioned to Amanda today that there’s a certain derogatory phrase that, since the beginning of the week, I can no longer be offended by if called. She didn’t think it was quite as clever as Nick did.
Speaking of the Warkentiens, Nick and Amy celebrate their sixth anniversary tomorrow, but Amy’s working in the evening so they decided to go out tonight to celebrate and asked if we’d mind watching Eli, which Amanda and I were happy to do. Unfortunately he started bawling, and I mean crying his guts out, right as they were leaving.
Amy had said it was just about time for him to take a nap anyway, so we went ahead and put him down in the guest room, but he kept right on crying. We tried everything we could think of- talking to him, rubbing his head, holding him, giving him his blanket and stuffed monkey, giving him a bottle… and nothing would work.
After a little over an hour I called Amy to see if there was anything we should do or be concerned about. It wasn’t bothering us, since he was in the back, and we didn’t want them to cut their time short but we didn’t want to be negligent. After a total of about two hours, we realized that it had finally stopped.
A little later Amanda and I were doing a few odds and ends. I was in the bathroom, right across the hall from the guest room, moving clothes to the dryer when Amanda walked by, opened the guest room door and flipped on the light.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at her. “Are you CRAZY?” With that a light bulb flipped in Amanda’s head like the one in the guest room as she realized that she’d forgotten that Eli was there. She’d gone in to get a baby gift for Ben and Jessica Lambeth, who were going to arrive soon. Well, it was for Graelyn Jane, who is also due to arrive soon. (Well, towards the end of September.)
Eli woke up a minute later and stated screaming again, but it only lasted a minute before he fell back asleep.
As alluded to, Ben and Jessica arrived. I think it was right around 10:00. We were just sitting around and talking while Harvey and their dog, Mac, made a huge mess of each other rolling around in the dirt outside. Bruce tagged along now and then, but I think he ultimately didn’t want to get caught up in that particular chaos. They were fun to clean off later, let me tell you. Ben would hold a dog while I sprayed and patted down whichever of our boys he had a hold of.
Nick and Amy came by after their date and we all hung out for a bit, half-watching an episode of Whale Wars.
Zach Dotsey