Ever find yourself in the middle of a frustrating day daydreaming about where else you’d rather be and what else you’d rather be doing?

So it’s only noon but already today I’ve had wishful thoughts about being in the following places, doing the following things:

* At a clothes store where the clothes I try in (in peace, without a fussy, whiny child kicking his feet and arching his back to get out of the stroller) make me look and feel incredible.

* In downtown Salt Lake City strolling Temple Square with the smell of flowers all around and the sun warming my shoulders.

* Anywhere with a tall, frosty, slightly melted ice cream milkshake in one hand and a spoon in the other.

* Traveling someplace I’ve never been before, all by myself, where I can wake up and feel the freedom and openness of the day and go wherever and do whatever I want during the day at my own pace without concern for anyone else.

Circulating around the same frustrations I’ve also found myself making a mental list of things I ought to stop doing/do less of in my actual real life:

* Eat fewer muffins from CostCo. And less chocolate milk.

* Stop leaving dirty dishes on the counter because I’m too lazy to put them in the sink or dishwasher.

* Stop being so tired at night so I can get more done in the day.

* Stop daydreaming about escaping my real life.

Is it time for my annual rant about door-to-door salespeople who want to know if my mom’s home?

Actual conversation yesterday:

Salesgirl, looking me over: “Are you the lady of the house?”

Me: “Yes.”

SG, skeptically: “Really? You…YOU’RE the lady of the house?”

Me: “Yes.”

SG: “Like, you’re the owner?”

Me: “Yes.”

SG, stammering: “Oh my gosh, because you…you look so YOUNG!”

Me: “Thanks.”

SG: “Like, you look 20! How old are you?”

(Yes, she really asked me that.)

Me: “28.”

SG: “Wow! [laughs nervously] Gosh… So, um…” [hands me a flyer] “I’m just going around your neighborhood and offering a carpet cleaning service…”

You can guess about how successful she was selling her service to me.

Am seriously considering posting my adult credentials outside my front door.

I am terrified of deer.

Here’s why. Last week I was on my way to my 6 a.m. aerobics class, feeling proud of myself for actually running ahead of schedule (which is hard to do that early in the morning). I was driving along a four-lane highway with a 55 mph speed limit. There wasn’t much traffic, just one car a few lengths ahead of me and a second car beside it in the other lane.

Suddenly a full-sized deer emerged from the left side of the road and ran across the two empty lanes and into my own. The car in front of me slammed into it, sending pieces of shrapnel and debris flying everywhere.

I pulled over to the side of road, as did the second car. We both got out and checked on the lady who hit the deer. She was fine; her car was in bad shape. The deer was dead.

The lady didn’t have a phone, so I called 911 while the other bystander used her phone to call the lady’s family.

(I just have to say that my call to 911 did not instill a feeling of confidence in our emergency response system. We were still technically in the bounds of my hometown, but near the border of the larger next town over. My call went through to the next town over. I told them where we were, and they transferred me to my hometown dispatcher. When I told that person where we were she said that we should be talking to the next town over. As she started to transfer me back I told her that I had already been transferred to her by the next town over. Then both dispatchers were on the phone together arguing about who should respond. Meanwhile, I’m looking at my watch, watching the minutes tick by, recognizing that although I had before been running ahead of schedule I was now about to be late to a class that I was teaching–the blackest sin of aerobic instruction. I finally told both dispatchers that I have to go and could they please just send someone to help the poor lady.)

So I got to class (late) and taught it. On the way home all I could see everywhere were these imaginary deer jumping out at me. (I did see two actual deer a couple blocks from my house, off to the side of the road.) And now I’m totally paranoid about deer jumping out at me while driving. Like I needed a longer list of things to be paranoid about.

Last week it was warm enough that Wes and I strolled over to our neighborhood park for 15 minutes. (It wasn’t thatwarm. I spent a good portion of the time wiping his nose.) He had so much fun that he didn’t want to leave. I hope spring hurries here.

Wes is so smart. He knows how to get into things I’m not ready for him to get into yet.

He loves it when we put toys…or things…on his head so he can anticipate them falling off. Hey, who needs fancy toys when we’ve got empty toilet paper rolls?

One thing I’ve had to work on with Wesley is eating. It’s taken a couple of months (at least) but just this past week he’s started using a spoon without me having to hold onto it with him the entire time. Before, he would use the spoon fine as long as I helped him guide it. The second I let go so would he. He still struggles to scoop up the food, but at least now he can get it to his mouth and feed himself successfully. I’m very proud and happy for this accomplishment.

He’s also eating more “big boy food,” which is good progress. For a long time he didn’t want much more than just his bottles of milk and baby food. His appetite seems heartier. His breakfast usually consists of oatmeal (maple and brown sugar–NO substitutes!) and often some yogurt or a piece of toast. He doesn’t always eat a real lunch because sometimes he falls asleep for a nap before I get around to making lunch for myself and John. But he’s always ready for dinner by about 4 o’clock. He’ll usually eat a couple pieces of toast, some mashed fruit (he likes pears and sometimes peaches), and if we happen to be eating around the same time he may sample what we’re having (no guarantee he’ll like it, though). He’s picky and very opinionated about what is allowed to stay in his mouth.

Some things he likes:

Starches: toast, bagels, oatmeal
Fruit: canned pears or peaches, mashed. Sometimes I’m lucky and get him to eat a banana, but not often. He’ll eat it in baby food form, though, no problem.
Veggies: still only in baby food form. I can’t get him to eat any “real” veggies except for a few bites of salad now and again. But he eats baby food really well: peas, green beans, carrots, and squash.
Dairy: yogurt. NOT cottage cheese.
Snacks: pretzels, pretzels, pretzels, did I mention pretzels? Also chocolate pudding and sometimes crackers.
Junk: french fries, ice cream, cookies (ONLY the fudge-striped shortbread cookies)

The other thing I’m struggling to transition him to is drinking from a cup, sippy cup, or straw. He doesn’t understand how to suck, so a straw and some types of sippy cups don’t work for him. He gets the concept of a cup but mostly he likes to chew on the edge and isn’t so interested in the purpose of drinking. Often the liquid goes into his mouth and spills right down his front and onto the floor. This is frustrating to me. We want him to be comfortable drinking liquids that are cold (like milk straight from the fridge rather than microwaved warm) before we go on vacation next month, but right now that goal seems waaaay off. And I haven’t even touched on the apparent impossibility of weaning him off the bottle. He’s going to be eight and taking bottles of milk to school in his lunch box.

In good news, though, his love for balloons has helped him say his first two-syllable word: “ballooo.”

Speech is notoriously hard for kids with Down syndrome. We’re just so happy that he’s making sounds that actually resemble words. He’s making good progress! In addition, he knows a lot of signs, more than we even realize (thanks to Signing Time videos). Some things he says that John and I recognize as words (he always accompanies these words with the signs):

“Dow” for down
“AyDuh!” for all done
“Mo” for more
“deesh” for cat
“balloo” for balloon
“no” for no
“wawa” for water
“dydydy” for dry (we always tell him, “dry dry dry!”)
“yay!” for yay

All in all, we think he’s one super smart kid.

Completely unrelated, here are some pictures snapped at one of my Zumba classes at BYU last month. I love teaching there. It’s one of the funnest ways I get to spend my time every week. If you haven’t tried Zumba, you should.

I know it’s January and everyone’s making New Year’s Resolutions. But frankly I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. I look at my life and see a lot of fantastic things I’m really happy with. But I also see what’s lacking. Instead of determining to change these things I’m just going to gripe about them for a minute.

1. I wish toys and clutter and dishes didn’t multiply faster than rabbits in my house. I feel so awesome when my house is clean, but it lasts about five seconds and then it’s gone. Cleaning and re-cleaning gets exhausting day after day.

2. I feel jealous sometimes of other wives and moms who effortlessly make meals every night for their families that involve actual cooking rather than warming and that feature vegetables that get eaten. I do prepare every meal for everyone in my house every day, but I am no cook. And vegetables are not a frequent visitor at our table. If my family dies early of poor nutrition it will be all my fault.

3. Teaching aerobics and Zumba is one of my great joys and accomplishments in life, but the fact is that it requires hours and hours in prep time, travel time, and teaching time that adds up to 10+ hours outside the home every week in addition to hours spent at home working on aerobics-related stuff that takes the place of more domestic-type things. Which likely partially accounts for my frustrations with #1 and #2.

4. My car is never clean and I wish it were. It accumulates tissues (from me) and pretzels (from Wes) and other random things that I don’t have enough time/hands/patience to deal with when I’m removing Wes and/or groceries and/or other things from the car.

5. My garage door is broken and I really wish it would close on its own without me having to get out of my car and go back in to manually shut it every time. I also wish new garage door motors weren’t $300. But inconvenience is cheaper than a new motor.

6. I wish I ate perfectly all the time. And that it was easy and natural like it seems to be for some people. Like, “Of course I eat broiled salmon and raw spinach for lunch and fruit for dessert and never crave the taste of sugar. Doesn’t everyone?”

7. I wish I felt like reading the scriptures for longer than 10 minutes a day. But I am happy I open them every day, period, regardless of how long I read. It brings every uncertain thing into quick perspective.

8. Sometimes I think I should be more interested in reading the type of “deep” books I read in college as an English major. But honestly, I like a quick, pleasurable read that makes me laugh and feel fuzzy inside and that’s pure entertainment.

9. I wish the news didn’t make me sad. I would watch/read it more if it didn’t.

10. I hope in spite of all these things I’m still a decent person that leaves a positive impact on some of the people I meet. I think happiness doesn’t require perfection–thankfully.

…for credit card companies.

That’s the first time I’ve ever said that.

Last week I got a recorded message from our credit card company, which normally I would ignore. But I listened and it asked me to verify if I had used my credit card earlier the same day (it was 9 a.m.) to make a $3 purchase somewhere in Mexico.

Um, no.

So I was transferred to a Fraud Specialist (cool title) who told me there were actually two charges on the card from Mexico, one for $3 and one for $1. She said that fraudsters usually make a few small purchases first to check the card’s authenticity before really going for it. The company immediately canceled the card and issued us a new number.

I know the credit card company keeps on top of these things to save their own legal behind, but I was really grateful they caught this so fast.

Whenever we order something online we use our credit card’s online “ShopSafe” feature that issues a number specifically for our purchase and keeps our real number protected. I’m not sure how our number got stolen. But it was a bit of a reality check for us.