Marissa Turns Five Years Old

Okay, technically she turns five on Monday, but today was her big birthday bash. And BIG it was. Marissa has a lot of friends, we invited 18 kids (not sure how that happened, LOL) and all 18 came. That's 18 four and five-year-olds, all at Chuck E. Cheese. It was quite the sight. I was really glad we had the party in the morning, because we basically had the whole place to ourselves while her party was going on. It was exhausting keeping track of all those kids but it was fun. We had to be careful not to call it a "birthday party" or Marissa would get upset. Yes, there's a story there. ;) I think it was my fault. I told her one time a few weeks ago that she was growing up too fast or something like that and she took it to heart. She's decided she doesn't want to turn five, she wants to stay four because Mommy doesn't want her to get bigger. Sigh! I tried in the past week to change her mind before the party but she wouldn't have it. I tried telling her she couldn't get birthday presents unless it was her birthday and she responded with "they're party presents", LOL. She had an answer for everything. I told her I was okay with her turning five and that I wanted her to turn five, and that being five would be fun. I don't know, I guess I'll just wait it out until she decides it's okay to be five years old. And THEN silly me forgot to tell the staff at Chuck E. Cheese about her "birthday aversion", and Chuck E. came out and started dancing and singing "Happy Birthday" to Marissa and the tears started. I told them she wanted to sing "Happy Party", LOL... She quickly recovered before the song was over, thank goodness. I have to be careful what I say from now on, she's a sensitive girl... Like her Mom. ;)

After the exhausting party I still managed to go for a run tonight... It didn't go as great as I would have liked, but it was okay. I didn't have enough energy to do the whole session. I'm going to try increasing to four times a week. Some beginner training programs say you should run three times a week and some say four, so I think I'll try four and see if it makes any difference. I'm not improving as fast as I'd like.

The novel is slow-going, I have to admit. I think the story is progressing okay, but I'm not spending enough time on it if I want to finish the 50,000 words on time. In the past week, Marissa's birthday became a priority, and situations with friends, and other life commitments. I'm still determined to catch up though...