A week of highs and lows

Earlier this week we celebrated Hot Wheels' fourth birthday. The night before, after the kids went to bed, I decorated the house with numerous birthday decorations. Including 15 2-foot metallic streamer type decorations with different pieces hanging from the bottom that look like hats, cakes, balloons, stars, etc. I realized that our ceiling paint is not amenable to sticking scotch tape so I had to settle for doorways and items to hang them from. This makes the ones in the doorway a bit low if you're over 40 inches tall, as two of the house occupants are. Anyway, it's worth it because Hot Wheels was very excited when I called from work to wish him a happy birthday. In a couple days we'll take them down again until Superman turns three. We went to Chuck E Cheese's for lunch and invited one of Hot Wheels' friends from school along with his mother. The kids all had fun playing the games and then we came home and Hot Wheels opened his gifts. He got the ESPN Better Batter set, which is really cool. He also got a set of Star Wars books and 2 new lightsabers that light up and make cool noises. We all had a sword fight since we now have 4 lightsabers and then we played baseball in the family room for an hour or so. It was a great day. I love that the boys are getting old enough that some of their toys are really fun. Before he went to sleep I told Hot Wheels about the day he was born, he likes to hear about it, and how when he was born he gave us the best present ever, our new names- mom and dad. He thinks it's cool that he's the one that made us mom and dad, although he doesn't get to concept that we were ever anything else. It's funny to think about.

That was clearly the highlight of the week. The low point would be this morning when I learned that my aunt passed away due to complications from Alzheimer's disease. She was only 66 years old and she was such a social and vibrant woman that it was really sad to see what this disease robbed her of over the past few years. I am sorry for my mother, it's her older sister, because she arrived at the nursing home only a couple hours after she had passed away. I know she really wanted a chance to say good bye, whether my aunt would have been aware of her presence or not I'm not sure, but I think it would have brought her some closure. It's also especially sad for my grandmother who has now outlived her husband and oldest child. She's a strong woman, my grandmother, still living on her own at almost 89 years old. Guess I'll be making a trip for the funeral this week. It will be nice to see family that I haven't seen since our wedding, but too bad that it's not under better circumstances.

Nutritionally another bomb of a week. My workouts were off (see the ugliest mile) and I guess I decided this week that I should eat everything in sight, including birthday cupcakes, more cherry pie and a piece of carrot cake at lunch. I hope it's a phase. If it's not I'll be outgrowing my maternity pants pretty soon. Whatever, I'm just going to take things easy for a couple days and then worry about getting back into the normal swing of things. Maybe I'm on a hormone overload week. I guess it happens when a parasite Critter is aboard.

Pregnancy status: 21 weeks, 5 days. 128 days to go.