My dad called today to make sure I remembered that it was my mom’s birthday. He had talked to her earlier and he asked if she’d heard from all of their kids yet, and she said she’d heard from everyone but me so far. It was one of the first things I’d thought about this morning, and in fact “Milly” had posted a happy birthday message to her on Facebook, but since I know how busy she is with work I decided I’d call her later in the day.
I called her around 5:30 and, thought I can’t remember everything we talked about, it felt extra nice to talk to my mom today. I was sitting outside on the porch swing with Milly, and Mom sounded delighted when Milly made noises. Milly, in fact, was pretty talkative today, as she has been lately.
We’ve got Nick and Amy’s dog, possibly until early next week. The Warkentiens are out of town for Amy’s grandfather’s funeral and Max was being watched part of the week by some other friends of theirs, but they weren’t able to keep him all week. Amanda picked him up today after work. He and Harvey played outside most of the day, which was fine except that it was wet outside and they were very dirty when they came in. Bruce just tried to stay out of the way.
For the record, Max’s farts might just be smellier than Harvey’s.
Amanda’s dad, Phil, stopped by for a bit today. He and Michael had gone to a Bobcats game last night (which they lost, to Orlando) and he was coming by after dropping Michael back off at his apartment. He was very happy to see Milly and, even though she was a bit shy at first, she enjoyed her time with her Paw Paw.
Angus Trott, who went to school with Amanda, came by today. He works for the exterminating company we use, Pestco. It’s funny- they come every three months and you know exactly when it’s time for them to come because that’s when bugs start to appear around the house again. It’s almost like someone sneaks over a bunch of bugs every three months and lets them loose. At any rate, Angus is also a Duke fan, so we talked a bit about Duke’s championship while he sprayed. He had actually gotten a good deal on some ACC tourney tickets, so he was there when Duke won that.
Angus had the Kevin Millard effect on Milly. She started crying as soon as he walked in the door. I don’t know what it is- she’s fine with most strangers.
Kirsten came to watch Milly and Amanda and I went to small group. I really our group. We have some pretty open, honest and frank discussions. The newest couple, Reece and Stephanie, seem to have warmed up and gotten comfortable talking pretty fast. That’s a tough thing for people to do sometimes.
They’ve got a cute kid, Jacob, who is half Milly’s age. He’s got huge eyes and looks like a tiny little grown-up man. On the subject of babies in attendance, Felix, Joel and Mia’s boy, literally gets bigger every time I see him. He’s huge. (Or as Joel might say, “Yuge.”) I realized when we saw him on Monday that his head’s as big as Milly’s and he’s what, three months? I think Mia said he’s wearing 6-9 month clothes. He’s probably about as long as Milly, but not yet quite as heavy. Come to think of it, Milly’s about as long as Eli and Eli is 13 months old, so that means Felix is as big as a 13 month old. They said he drinks eight ounces in a feeding. Milly usually just drinks six (though I’ve been giving her seven lately).
Anyhoo.
On the way to and from small group Amanda and I discussed some of the things going on in our current study, Love & War. One of the things I talked about was where I think some of my issues come from, so here’s something to see if I can get a little interaction on this website. What do you think my issues are and where do they come from? I’ve had almost 700 unique visitors on this site this month (mostly from things written about Duke, I’m sure, but still), so it might be interesting to see a) if I can get people to actually comment on some posts and b) how well any site visitors actually know me.
For the record, I expect this experiment to be a colossal flop.
Zach Dotsey