Today I stopped at Sports Authority to see if they had any New Balance cross trainers in my size, which is 7D. For those of you who have no idea what the D means (i.e., You Whose Feet Are Normal), it refers to the width. “AA” is narrow, “B” is normal, “C” is wide, “D” is wider, “EE” even wider still, etc. Some shoe manufacturers group “C” and “D” together as “wide,” although “C” size shoes are too narrow for me.

Anyway. At Sports Authority I went straight to their clearance aisle. They usually have a lot of New Balance shoes on clearance, but you have to dig through it all to know for sure. There was a young male employee on a ladder in the middle of the aisle rearranging the clearance shoes. He was in my way a little, but I tried to dig around him and his ladder as best I could.

After a few minutes he got down and asked if he could help me find something. I was glad he asked, because the shoes were all out of order and I thought he might know whether there was a shoe in my size since he’d just been rearranging them. I told him I was looking for New Balance cross trainers in 7D.

“Seventy?” he asked.

“7D,” I repeated, emphasizing the “D” sound, because to me it sounded like he had said “seventy.”

He looked a little confused and stared at the shelves.

“It’s always hard to find my size,” I said, making friendly conversation as I continued to root through the shoes. “7D isn’t a common size.”

He stared blankly at the shoes.

Finally he looked back at me with an apologetic expression on his face. “I don’t think our shoes come in that size. Seventy is a really high number,” he said, as if explaining something very obvious to an extremely dim person.

I tried to be nice and smile. “I know. I’m looking for 7-D.” And I drew a “D” shape in the air with my finger.

He got it. “Ohhh! Like 7D. I thought you meant…”

Then he looked back at the shoes and picked up a couple pairs, checked the sizes, and put them down again. “I don’t think we carry that size.”

I said, “Oh, you do. I always buy my shoes here.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe you should study your shoe section a little more.”

And then I left.

I’m not sure where Sports Authority is getting their employees from, but this guy sure wasn’t an authority on the shoes he was supposed to be selling today.

I was at Walmart near the book aisle today when an older woman in a wheelchair stopped me and Wes and started talking with Wes. She wanted to know if he has Down syndrome. Then she told me about her niece who has DS. I noticed the lady was wearing a Buddy Walk t-shirt. Wes has the same t-shirt that he got from participating in the Buddy Walk when he was just five weeks old.

She told me how much they love their niece, how integral she is to the family. She reminded me how special Wes is and how lucky we are to have him with us.

Now that Wes is a free-minded, independent 18-month-old who walks, he’s pretty much everywhere. He roams wherever his feet take him–and his toys follow.

Play the following game:

“Guess Where Wes Was”
Look at the pictures. Can you find where Wes was?

The last picture illustrates Wesley’s favorite hobby of dumping whatever he can carry into our bathtub. You’ll notice his empty bottle and an entire wicker wastebasket along with other random things he found lying around. Just try to picture Wes lugging around the wastebasket, which really is almost as tall as he is. That little guy is tough and determined to haul it all the way from the bedroom, to the bathroom, and heave it up and over the bathtub’s edge.

Today was the Twilight movie DVD release, and last night a few of my friends and I channeled our inner-teen and held a Twilight party at my house.

The table was decorated in black, red, and white with white tulips as the centerpiece.

I (yes, even I, the non-cook) made the main entree, which was breaded chicken breast and Alfredo sauce (both made from scratch) served over whole wheat spaghetti. I used the terrific and very easy-to-follow recipe from here. Friends brought salad and red velvet cake to round things out.

To add more ambiance I set out framed quotes from the books that I printed on old fashioned looking paper (which doesn’t show up in the photos).

We played games…

And at midnight the girls headed to Walmart to pick up our very own DVDs. It was busy! But we found a shorter line and only had to wait about twenty minutes. Then we came home and got our Edward fix!

I just had to share that I got my test results for the AFAA exam–and I passed with flying colors. Remember how I was the first person done and wasn’t sure if maybe all the questions that I had thought were easy were actually trick questions that everyone else but me recognized as tricky and were spending extra time on to make sure they got it right?

It turns out I really did know my stuff. I scored 97/100 on the written exam. Not too shabby. Two months of studying didn’t go to waste after all.

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