A few random things.

1.

I left Wes with a neighbor yesterday and saw Mama Mia with a friend. It was totally fun and carefree to go see a movie. (Ah, the pleasures of my pre-mom life…) Anyway. The movie: Mama Mia was playing in London when I lived there six years ago and I had a roommate who saw it three times (which is not cheap, even at student prices). I never understood why, until now. Now I wish I’d gone to see it with her because I’m sure I would’ve loved it. Mama Mia is a fun musical. It has all the right elements for me–upbeat music, decent storyline, a dash of romance, a bit of humor, and, of course, cheesiness (what’s a musical without the background characters spontaneously bursting into chorus or the entire cast suddenly organizing themselves into dance lines with jazz hands?).

Meryl Streep is 59 years old but hardly shows her age. She is gorgeous, spunky, lithe (she even does the splits in one scene while jumping on the bed), and–surprise!–she can sing. She’s got a nice voice.

I loved Amanda Seyfried, who plays her daughter, but I found I had strong feelings against her in-movie fiance. I felt kind of bad for him because I’m not sure if he was supposed to be unlikeable or if that’s just how his character turned out.

Mr. Darcy (oops, I mean Colin Firth) plays one of Meryl Streep’s former lovers, and even though I love him simply for being Mr. Darcy I thought he did a great job. Even singing. Apparently when they offered him the job he told them he rarely sings outside the shower, but they convinced him he’d do all right. And he did.

Pierce Bronson (a.k.a. James Bond) on the other hand… I think he’s got a great voice, but he sounds better when backed up by at least a dozen chorus members. He did okay, all considering. And he’s not bad to look at if you’re a woman over 35. I mean, the guy’s a walking cologne ad.

The very funniest bit of the film is when the fiance is about to leave the beach for his bachelor party and the chorus (all men) suddenly emerges from the ocean behind him wearing snorkel gear and spontaneously starts dancing on the pier in colored flippers. It’s probably one of those “you have to see it to get it” things. But trust me, it’s totally funny.

The music was fun. The movie was fun. The disco suits they wore during the closing credits were super fun. It’s a girl movie, no question. It was a good one to see without John.

2.

Today I bought Wes some clothes–two sleepers and one packet of onesies. I don’t buy him many clothes (he has a lot of hand-me-downs from family). But sometimes it’s nice to dress him in something and think to myself, “I gave him this.” Plus, I’m a total sucker for those sleepers that have feet in the shape of animals. One of the sleepers I got him today has feet shaped like puppies and the other like little bears. It’s strange how my taste in fashion has evolved to include the finer points of baby jammies.

3.

I was up in American Fork and went to the Best. Bakery. Ever. Flour Girls & Dough Boys is an artisan bakery (meaning EVERYTHING is from scratch), plus it’s a cafe. You can order breakfast, lunch, dessert–anything. The atmosphere is classy and comfortable. Think vintage chandeliers, turquoise walls, checkered floor, orange-framed menus. I noticed a shelf full of kids’ books (I read somewhere that they have story time for preschoolers), which I thought was a great addition to a cozy cafe.

After salivating over displays of cheesecakes, gourmet cupcakes, chocolate croissants, shortbread cookies, etc., I brought home a loaf of asiago cheese bread. It was $5.49, which I thought was a lot, but it really does taste the best of any asiago cheese bread I’ve had. Most bakeries bake white bread and sprinkle the cheese on top. Here, the cheese makes up 20% of the dough, too, so the overall flavor is nice and cheesy-salty.

I saw on the menu that they also scoop Spotted Dog Creamery ice cream, which is made locally in Salt Lake City. Some of their sundaes sound pretty delish, so maybe next time I’ll get a loaf to go and a sundae to stay.

A few good things.

First off, Wes is nine weeks old. Growing up before our eyes. Yesterday he was weighed by a visiting nurse and he weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz. Wow!

Second, this morning was his Big Cardiology Appointment. About half of all kids with Down syndrome have heart problems, so we had reason to be worried, but also reason to be hopeful, since so far his health has seemed fairly sturdy. Our cardiologist, Dr. Mart, comes down from Primary Children’s in SLC to the Parkway Health Center in Orem once in a while, which was nice so I didn’t have to drive so far. The nurse checked his oxygen saturation levels, and they were excellent. This is great since he was on oxygen for a few weeks, and I’ve seen DS kids months older than Wes who still require constant oxygen. Then she did an EKG (electrocardiogram), where she stuck stickers all over his chest and back with metal spiggets on each one and then clamped many wires to the metal, like you do when jumpstarting a car. Wes did fine until she was done and had to remove the stickers. I guess it didn’t feel too good to him, because he started to cry. The nurse, I think, was in love with him because she scooped him up and gushed, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over until he quieted down. Usually the nurses will say something like, “You can pick him up if you want,” instead of doing it themselves. But this nurse kept saying how adorable and cute and sweet Wes was, and she had a hard time putting him down again.

After that was the big echocardiogram. It’s like an ultrasound for the heart. Wes was stripped down to his diaper and had goop smeared on his chest and I got to see pictures of his heart on the monitor from the top, bottom, and sides. It would have been more interesting if I knew what any of it meant. That took about 25 minutes, wherein Wes was pretty patient.

Finally Dr. Mart came in and gave us the results. Dr. Mart is pretty amazing; he and his wife have sixteen (sixteen!) kids, most of them adopted and all of the adopted ones have special needs. He told me he has a son with Down syndrome. When I asked how old his son was, he said, “Oh, like six or seven.” I guess with sixteen kids the ages tend to blend together.

Anyway, the verdict: Wesley’s heart looks really good, but he does have something called Small Secundum ASD. It means that one of the valves that should have closed up at birth didn’t, but the opening is a small one, and Dr. Mart said that often such openings will close by themselves in a couple of years. So we’ll take Wes back when he’s two or three to have another echocardiogram and see how his heart looks then.

Considering that a lot of little kids with DS have to endure major heart surgery before they’re even toddlers, we feel really lucky that Wes’s heart is so healthy.

Third bit of goodness: After the doctor appointment I was starved, so I visited John at work and he took me out to Shoots restaurant in Provo. Yum! It was my first time there and John’s second. We both got lunch specials, which was about $8 apiece and came with soup, egg roll, fried won tons, and entree. I normally don’t like egg rolls, but it must be because I’ve never had one that was so fresh as the ones they make there. It was so good! The egg drop soup was a little bland, though. However, my entree was delicious. I got honey walnut chicken, which was served on a bed of lettuce in some creamy dressing. Oh, it was good. John and I split a strawberry boba drink, which was yummy. To top it all off we split a dessert: shaved ice topped with cream, sweetended condensed milk, and fresh fruit (pineapple, strawberries, and bananas). It was almost better than ice cream. The creamy ice melted on your tongue. It was so good.

Okay, so now that you know that I ate ten times my weight in calories today, here are a few pictures of the kid.

Here he is konked out in his crib tonight. Sometimes when I peek at him while he’s sleeping I think he looks just like a porcelain doll. Sometimes people who see him will tell me that he looks so perfect, he doesn’t look real. I love how he holds his hands up a little while he’s sleeping.

I had to take a shot of him crying the other day.

And one more:

Well, I wasn’t going to post any thoughts about the last three books I’ve read–Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse–but I changed my mind after I found myself talking about the books so frequently with others.

First of all, the books are young adult novels about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire and is also best friends with (and eventually a little in love with) a werewolf.

Okay. Not really my type of plot. But my visiting teacher lent me Twilight and after reading that one I had to keep going.

Everyone upon everyone who likes to read has been talking about these books. You’ve probably heard them. But even after reading the books myself I kept wondering why: Why are these books such a hit?

I should point out that the books are probably most popular among the female readers because, in spite of the genuinely cool parts dealing with vampires and werewolves, the books are still fundamentally a love story. And a really intense love story at that.

So here’s my theory about why these books are so popular (in spite of the fact that the teenage girl, Bella, gets more and more annoying as the books go on): Stephanie Meyer has created another Mr. Darcy in Edward Cullen.

Unlike Mr. Darcy, Edward is seventeen, a vampire, and immortal. But other than that he and Mr. Darcy are one and the same: Extremely attractive. Sexy. Impeccably polite. Gentlemanly. And, more than anything, would do anything for the woman he loves.

This is the type of man women love to read about, love to dream about, love to think of themselves with. (Some of us, of course, are fortunate enough to already be married to someone with exactly these qualities. Minus the seventeen, vampire, and immortal bits.) I mean, how many women out there have watched BBC’s Pride and Prejudice a zillion times just for that part where Mr. Darcy dives into the pond and walks back in his wet shirt? What woman doesn’t wilt at the intense expression in Mr. Darcy’s eyes when he stares at Elizabeth Bennett? What woman doesn’t equate Mr. Darcy with the quintessential romantic hero and secretly wish they were Miss Bennett so they could be the object of Mr. Darcy’s attentions?

Don’t deny it, girls. You know it’s true.

Edward is the same way. Irresistible.

I think that’s a large part why we keep reading. We want to see Bella and Edward end up happily together, even though it possibly involves Bella becoming a vampire herself and breaking her best friend Jacob’s heart. And I know some people are really on Team Jacob and are rooting that he and Bella will end up together, but sorry, I think you’re in the vast minority. I’m all for Edward, and hope that Bella will get over her whininess and make us think that somehow she deserves such a man as Edward.

After an amazing vacation in the Caribbean and Florida we are back in the snowy, icy, yucky freezingness of Utah.

But here are some glimpses back to the wonderful warmth of our past week:

Us on the beach in Freeport, The Bahamas.

Us visiting Chocoben ruins about an hour south of Costa Maya, Mexico.

Lastly, just look at this water in Grand Cayman. And don’t tell me you don’t want to just jump in it right now, clothes on and everything.

From cnn.com:
(http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/11/11/nz.text.ap/index.html)

New Zealand students may ‘text-speak’ in exams

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s high school students will be able to use “text-speak” — the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers — in national exams this year, officials said.

Text-speak, a second language for thousands of teens, uses abbreviated words and phrases such as “txt” for “text”, “lol” for “laughing out loud” or “lots of love,” and “CU” for “see you.”

The move has already divided students and educators who fear it could damage the English language.

New Zealand’s Qualifications Authority said Friday that it still strongly discourages students from using anything other than full English, but that credit will be given if the answer “clearly shows the required understanding,” even if it contains text-speak.

The authority’s deputy chief executive for qualifications, Bali Haque, said students should aim to make their answers as clear as possible.

Confident that those grading papers would understand answers written in text-speak, Haque stressed that in some exams, including English, text abbreviations would be penalized.

My brother-in-law found this cartoon in the Salt Lake Tribune online:

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On Tuesday night (Valentine’s Day, in case you didn’t register that fact) John and I got off work early and he took me to dinner at Olive Garden in Provo.

I’ve never noticed it before, but on Valentine’s Day suddenly couples are everywhere. I bet you didn’t even know that so many people dated or were married in the world. Everywhere I looked, people were walking hand-in-hand, cuddling up, smooching. Walking hand-in-hand with my wonderful husband, I actually felt like I was part of a special, secret club–the Secret Society of Lovers.

Sometimes, on a regular day, when you see two people expressing PDA (whether it’s hand-holding or arms around the waist or kissing), you think, “Gah! Get a room!”

But on Valentine’s Day it’s different. You see a couple engaged in PDA and it’s like, “Hey, look! You’re in the Secret Society of Lovers, too! You go, girl!” It’s an instant bond with people you don’t know.

Members of the SSL come out just once a year, the one day it’s acceptable and even a status symbol to show your love for someone else. I want a card embossed with gold script that says

Shannon
Honored Member of the Secret Society of Lovers Since August 2001

(Present this card at any ice cream establishment for 15 percent discount!)

I’ll keep wishing…

In the meantime, here are two tips for anyone (i.e., guys) planning to take their sweetie out for a special dinner next V-Day:

1) If you want to take her (which, translated, means that she wants to go, so you’d better take her) to a fancy schmancy place like Chef’s Table in Orem, you’d better call for reservations at least three weeks in advance. John wanted to take me (which, translated again, means that I wanted to go and told John he’d better take me) to Chef’s Table, so in late January I suggested that he call to schedule a reservation. Here’s the gist of his phone conversation with the Chef’s Table employee:

John: Hi. Um, I was wondering if I could make a reservation for Valentine’s Day.

Chef’s Table Employee: Sure, no problem. We’ve only got two reservations so far.

John, thinking to self: Phew. Good. My wife won’t hate me, and maybe I won’t even need to get her flowers if I take her here.

Chef’s Table Employee: Let me just go grab the reservation book. Do you mind if I put you on hold?

John: N– (Hold music cuts off his response . . .)

John, fifteen minutes later, still on hold, thinking to self: Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to get her flowers after all . . .

To sum up, after being on hold for fifteen minutes John finally hung up. He called back a week later, and guess what? The only spot still available was for 9:30 p.m., and if you know me, you know that 9:30 p.m. is practically equivalent to 2:30 a.m. I’m pretty sure I have a trip switch hidden somewhere deep inside me that flips on sleep mode starting between 8:30 and 9 at night.

So, needless to say, we didn’t go to Chef’s Table this year but opted for Olive Garden instead.

Now for tip #2:

2) No matter where you take your sweetie for dinner on Valentine’s Day, be sure you go early. We arrived at Olive Garden at 4:30 and already there was a ten-minute wait. This was nothing compared to when we left Olive Garden at 5:45–a line was coming out the front door and couples were strewn everywhere, waiting to be seated. We’re glad we got in and out early.

(Obviously, this guy’s not a member of the SSL club . . .)