Sarah Erreca is a pretty fun name to say.  I just thought I’d start off with that.

Amanda, Milly and I went to Richlands this morning.  Amanda’s old friend Sarah was in town for a baby shower tomorrow, which we obviously won’t be able to attend because tomorrow is Milly’s birthday party.  Amanda wanted to make sure she got a chance to see her and especially her new daughter, Abigail.  We met up with them, Mike (whom Sarah should thank for the gift of his last name, since it’s so fun to say with her first name) and Sarah’s sister at Red Robin in Jacksonville.

I’ve only met them three times- once at their wedding, another time when we all happened to be in Richlands and today.  But we’ve talked on Facebook and I’ve played Mike in MarioKart, so I really feel like I’ve known them longer than I have.  Anyway, Abigail was sleeping most of the time, but she did wake up for a bit.  She’s so tiny- hard to imagine my nearly one year old daughter was once so small.

I almost didn’t go today, but my workload looked like it wasn’t too bad, so I decided to.  I spent time before and after lunch working in Amanda’s parents’ sun room.  I discovered when we got there that my phone, which I need for work, was almost dead.  Fortunately, the iPod/iPhone car hookup my mom got me for my birthday works as a charger, so we were able to charge it driving back and forth from Jacksonville, which gave me enough charge.  Kudos to Amanda for thinking about that.

In other near-disaster news, I found out that the reason my workload was light was that a client had sent an email with a very large attachment and it had gunked up our ticketing system, so I found out while out at lunch that I had 18 emails to take care of when we got back to Amanda’s parents’ house.  It ended up not being all that bad, but I did have a pretty busy afternoon.

Karen decided to ride back to Wilmington with us and just go home tomorrow with Phil so she could help us set up for the party early.  I ended up riding in the back with Milly because Amanda and Karen were both afraid they’d get motion sickness.  That worked out alright for me because Amanda drove to Richlands so I could answer phone calls, and I ended up in the back with Milly on that trip too to make her happy.

Milly had a few firsts today, all involving getting into or onto something.  When we were getting ready to leave Richlands she was sitting in my lap in the backseat of the Jetta.  I hadn’t put her in the car seat yet because everyone wasn’t quite ready yet, but she ended up climbing out of my lap and into the car seat like she was just all ready to go.  Then later tonight, when I was letting her play in her nursery before getting her ready for bed, she climbed into her swing all by herself.  I made sure she didn’t fall, but she did a good job.  The girl’s got good balance.  And later, when she was messing with the swing and fell on the floor kind of hard, she didn’t fuss at all.  She’s tough.

The third one was also in the nursery.  She was just crawling around so I thought I’d sit in the rocking chair and read a book to her (I Can Read with My Eyes Shut by Dr. Seuss), and when I look up she was off sitting in the little rocking chair across the room, like it was no big deal.  And she was rocking, too.  She’s such an active little girl.

Tomorrow we celebrate Milly’s first year of life.  Amazing.  I can’t wait to see everyone.

Zach Dotsey