The world keeps spinning.

Admittedly, this week is a bit on the surreal side, but with two children in the house and a husband who is back to traveling, life must go on.

We visited my mother-in-law on Saturday. It wasn’t easy for any of us, except Meredith who happily chattered away about riding her bike and how great she is at writing her name. Meredith is often exactly what Brandon, Alex, and I need. She’s blissfully unaware that anything bad could ever happen because she lives inside a fairly tale. Sunday, Brandon wanted to do something to get us all out of the house and our minds off saying good-bye. In the middle of winter in Indianapolis, that pretty much means a movie or a trip to the Children’s Museum.

We used to visit the museum at least twice a month. The kids both loved it and it was a no brainer for a day when we didn’t have much going on. Those days are over. Oh, the kids still love it, but we have something practically every day. Alex’s first grade schedule really gets in our way. I feel guilty taking Meredith without Alex. I feel like he gets left out of our day enough as it is, which explains why he came home to a hot fudge sundae with Spanish peanuts that was 90% melted yesterday. Anyway, we hadn’t been to the museum in months.

We were shocked to see the huge addition that will supposedly be open in May. It was nice to actually see construction work underway, considering most of the large building projects around town are at a stand still. We probably could have just stood outside and looked at the steel beams and Alex would have gone home happy.

The museum has a new (and temporary, which lit a fire under me) Lego exhibit. Alex loves Legos and the only thing he loves more than Legos are castles and knights. So, this was right up his alley. As you can see, he is beaming with excitement.

For the record, this is Alex's "excited" face.

Meredith wanted to dig in the dinosaur area, so we did that and we stopped by a big comic book exhibit, that may or may not be temporary. I didn’t read the sign, but there’s a “real” Batmobile in there that was used in The Dark Knight, and I assume someone will eventually realize it’s in Indiana and want it back. So, my best guess is that it’s temporary.

Those three exhibits were all it took to wear us out completely. We’re getting old.

Monday, Meredith and I went to ballet while Brandon visited his mom for awhile. None of this is fun for anyone and some decisions had to be made about her care. They made the decision that Linda needed hospice care. Honestly, it was a relief. To know Linda would be without pain and on her way to a more peaceful place lifted a huge weight off my heart.

It seems a little strange that all of this was going on, while I was chatting with the other ballet moms about our fears over our husband’s jobs in this economy, and Meredith was getting sprinkled with fairy dust. I guess the world keeps turning and we have to keep a sense of normalcy for the kids and truthfully, for our sanity. Linda loves her grandchildren more than anything and she wants them to be happy, busy, and learning…always learning, she’s a teacher at heart.

Thanks so much to all who have offered prayers, meals, babysitting, and their time. Someone even offered to come over and help me put away laundry, God bless her! We appreciate it and feel really blessed to have such incredible friends.