Milly was decidedly awake before Amanda left for work today, so I let her out of her room so Amanda could see her before leaving. After we ate breakfast (and Milly used the potty!) Milly told me she wanted to go for a walk to the store to get a doughnut. It was surprisingly nice out, and I figured it would be good to get out, so we did.

When we got to the store Milly ran up to Jennie, our regular cashier, and gave her a hug. We got a doughnut (just one, to split), but the lady at the bakery offered Milly a cookie, so she spent the time riding back in the wagon eating that. After we got home I thought it would be nice to walk to the other end of the street because it was so nice out that I even took off my jacket when we were walking back. We got to the cul-de-sac and Milly, eating her half of the doughnut, threw up. She didn’t cry or fuss or anything, but she did get some on her shirt. I had made her drop what was left of her doughnut, and instead of being upset about having thrown up she went on about how she wanted to pick up her doughnut. When I told her it was dirty she said she wanted to go to the store and get another one. When I told her we weren’t going to do that she said she wanted to talk to GG, so we called GG and talked to her on the short walk back home.

Most of the morning was spent with me in the office and Milly sitting on her potty or playing in the living room. I did call the pediatrician to make sure there was nothing to worry about, since Milly had also thrown up a few days ago. Apparently there’s a bug going around. The lady I talked to said the symptoms are vomiting and diarrhea. Milly hadn’t had the latter, and the last I saw that came from that end was pretty solid. When I went in there to take her up for her nap she announced, “I did it!” and showed me what she’d done. It wasn’t runny, but it definitely had a shiny sheen.

Amanda came home and started to clean out the car some because it still smelled from Milly’s episode a few days ago, but I got a call from Nick who said he was at Subway (right by our house) and had locked his keys in his car. Amanda picked him up and took him home (Amy was there, but she’d left her phone at small group last night so he had no way of getting in touch with her) then came back and took Harvey to the vet for some shots. He was due (probably overdue) for a checkup too, so we got to spend a bit more money than we wanted or expected to.

Almost as soon as Amanda got back from that I left to go to a meeting. I think it went pretty well. The prospective client told me that he’d talked to some of the other large design companies earlier, but he liked a lot of what I told him. I think we had a rapport, so we’ll see.

When that finished up I went to Lowe’s to pick up some needed home repair supplies. I got something to stop the excessively leaking faucet out front, new weather stripping for the back door and a new flushing system for the downstairs toilet.

The faucet is leaking so bad that you can almost see the water running on the floor of the porch. The handle broke off the spigot a long time ago, but I’ve been able to use a wrench to turn the water on and off. That apparently doesn’t work well enough anymore, so I got a valve, screwed that onto it and closed it up. I put it on as soon as I got home, so I think I’ll actually go see how it’s doing right now.

Okay, that seems to have done the trick, or at least it’s stopped it enough that it’s not visibly flowing anymore. I’ll be able to tell better late tomorrow when the concrete has had some time to dry.

The weather stripping on the back door wore away a long time ago. If you stand at the right angle you can actually SEE light coming in between the door and the frame, so you can obviously feel cold air come in. With our heat not working quite right downstairs, that’s an issue. I haven’t fixed that yet, but I hope to have time to do it tomorrow. Milly was very intrigued by the stripping, which came in a very long plastic tube.

The downstairs toiler has a slow leak. It seems like that happens maybe twice a year. The issue is that the water corrodes the rubber stopper, so water starts leaking out and once it gets low enough the tank fills back up. A few days ago it was happening every forty minutes or so. Today it was about every twenty. On top of that our toilet is apparently outdated and I couldn’t find the right kind of stopper, so I bought a new system to go in the tank. Unfortunately, it still didn’t fit in our toilet, so I took it all apart and had to put it back together for naught.

The only positive to that was that Milly came back to help out and started playing with the screwdriver and parts of the handle I had taken off and apart to try to put the new system in. She really got the hang of it. She started prompting me: “What’s gonna work?” So I had to answer: “Teeeamwork!” I have no idea how many times we did that, but she was so cute sitting on the floor with the screwdriver and handle parts going on about teamwork.

The storm door on our front door is in need of some help too. Somehow some metal part broke or became loose on the handle and now sometimes stops the door from latching shut. Amanda said her dad suggested we just try super glue, and I forgot to get that. I’ll pick some up when I return the thing for the toilet. Actually, maybe we do have some. I’ll have to check the junk drawer.

I brought smoothies (or smoomies, to some around here) home for dinner.

Amanda said that while I was gone Milly peed, pooped (runny stuff that got on the toilet seat, more akin to what the lady from the pediatrician’s office was talking about) and put together a beaded neacklace. Amanda was really impressed with Milly’s dexterity in stringing beads.

After I took care of all the house repairs I was going to do for the night, the three of us sat on the couch and watched Elf, which was the first movie Milly ever watched about two years ago. She didn’t get all the way through it, but Amanda and I finished it then watched an episode of Once Upon a Time after we put her to bed.

I don’t want to go into any real details, but a couple we know is in some dire need of prayers. I just learned the situation today and it’s been in my head and Amanda’s pretty much ever since. We just pray for communication, understanding, fortitude and reconciliation for them.

Zach Dotsey