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