Bruce slept with my parents last night and I heard Harvey whimpering to go outside downstairs at 5:00 this morning. I let him out, and he wanted to go out again at about 7:30. I don’t know what was up with that. Milly slept through the night, but Amanda said she heard her just making sounds at some point early this morning and she was clamoring to get out of the crib at about a quarter of eight, just a little earlier than her usual time to get up. So I got her up and took her downstairs to say good morning to my parents.
Amanda took a shower while I fed Milly then Dad came upstairs while I bathed Milly. She always enjoys bath time. After that we all finished getting ready and went out to breakfast at Atlanta Bread before heading over to Port City Community Church, where we met up with Amanda’s grandparents and parents and Anna and Barry.
Our table for the baby dedication was front and center in the auditorium. Lauren Danaher, who was in charge of the event, told me that when they realized they’d put a table right in front of the flat screen TV that sits on the floor to give lyrics and other info to people on stage during services, they were worried that whoever was at that table might accidentally bump it or knock it over. She told me that Tim told her to just put us there. I don’t know if he was joking because if it got broken they’d know who to come to, or if he just knew that I’d know to watch out for it. Either way, it was a non-issue.
The dedication service itself was really nice. Beforehand, Amanda and I were to listen to a few sermons on children and family and answer some questions. We actually wrote our answers down (which we did separately) and used that as our guideline for answering those same questions that were given for discussion at the tables with the people we sat with. Milly spent the whole time crawling around on the table and chewing on pens, watches, phones or whatever else she could get her hands on.
Milly was absolutely adorable this morning, by the way. Amanda had gotten her a white dress with thin shoulder straps and a flower embossed on the bottom left. She was such a pretty baby, and so well-behaved.
After we got home people started arriving for the cookout. I think this covers everyone who was there:
Mom, Dad, Karen, Phil, Peggy, Earl, Erin, Adam, Michael, Jenn, Jeff, Barry, Anna, Hannah, Kirsten, Tim, Jenny, Mia, Joel, Felix, Mike, Sarah, Henry, Lauren, Amy, Nick, Eli and Alysse. And of course Amanda, Milly and I, though Milly missed the first hour of her shindig due to napping. She was great the whole time she was up though, especially considering how much she was passed around. Jeff, my cousin, seemed really excited to meet her. It was good to see him- it had been a while.
We ate lots of hamburgers and hot dogs and macaroni & cheese and beans and green beans and cupcakes and chips. I think just about everyone went home with leftovers and we’ve still got plenty ourselves. We actually have more left over than we thought we would and have some unopened things that we’re going to see if we can return to Costco.
By a little after 4:00 I think most people had taken off. I was really happy to see everyone who was able to make it. Milly went down for a nap at about 4:15 and by then Amanda had already picked up most anything that needing picking up and cleaning. Once the house was clear it already felt odd to be left along by ourselves. We ended up watching a few things on TV, including the 200th episode of South Park. It was a really fun episode in which they brought back every celebrity who had ever been on the show. I enjoyed seeing them and thinking back to the episodes they were on and how they were lampooned. They went all the way back to the first season and made all kinds of references to past episodes. It was a really good twist, I thought, on the old formula of a clip show.
While Milly was good all day, she was also a little off schedule and was getting cranky shortly after 7:00, so we ended up feeding her a few minutes early. Amanda read to her for the first time since she lost her voice when she was sick then we put her down to sleep. After that Amanda gave me an overdue haircut, and just as we were finishing that I got a call from Nick asking if we wanted to play MarioKart, which we did. We played four players, with Alysse taking the final slot. (Amy was off shooting a wedding.) We played that until a little after 10, when Amanda decided it was her bedtime. I did better this time around. Though Nick, Amanda and I all won sets of four races, I was the only one who was able to get four first place finishes in one set. Hey, after the whooping I got a few days ago, I need to toot my own horn.
Zach Dotsey