Turn and Face the Strange Ch-Ch-Changes

There have been some big changes lately around the old homestead. I'm out of that period in life where I get to make life altering announcements, so our "big" changes may not be big to people with exciting lives, but they are big to us.

The first thing is Chris' job. In two weeks, he will be leaving the Military Department behind and going back to work for the Department of Transportation in the Traffic program. (I just read that as someone from the outside and it seems so boring, but to us it is HUGE exciting news). Let me rephrase that: Chris got a job in a program he's wanted to work in forever with people whom he respects and whose company he enjoys immensely. It also came with a promotion. And the most minuscule raise you could actually imagine. As a matter of fact we plan on spending a quarter of the first month's bounty on a celebratory pizza tomorrow night. But money doesn't buy happiness. What buys happiness is getting to spend 8 hours of your day in a place you enjoy doing a job you love. And Chris has landed that. I am super happy for him. 

The second big change is that Jane started at a new preschool. When I first went back to work this school had a wait list as long as the Hobbit trilogy. But miraculously, we gave them a Hail Mary phone call a week ago and they had an opening. 

I am in love with this school. She has been going for a week and already we are seeing a different Jane. She is happier and more confident and she is learning concepts I didn't know it was possible for a five year old to learn. We were worried the transition would be rough, but she has slipped seamlessly into her new environment. She's made new friends and gotten into a new routine. She even discovered an old friend there whom she immediately re-bonded with. Her teachers are amazing. They are well educated and patient and kind. Her head teacher has been at the school for over a decade. 

The children are treated with such respect and they behave incredibly well with very little discipline. During class time, they are quiet and engaged. Class time and class space are organized down to the smallest detail. It is unbelievable. But we now have a problem. Jane's sticker chart. She gets a sticker for every day of good behavior. 9 stickers = 1 leap pad app. She has been getting a sticker every day. We had to cough up an app this week and I expect we'll have to do the same next week. It's a good thing Chris got a raise that made us affluent enough to afford 4 apps a month. Make that 3 after the celebratory pizza. 

There's one more big change to the household: 

this box. 

I don't know what it does or its significance, but Chris seems to love it. And he is important to me, so this box is important to me as well. I do know that it just got slightly more complicated to turn on the TV. 

In other news, winter refuses to die. The kids don't mind. They would mind even less if they weren't always fighting over this tiny orange snow shovel. I think it was intended for emergency vehicular use. I have a cell phone and such things as tow trucks exist so it has proved unnecessary to me but invaluable to the kids. 

 Still, I am sick of this endless winter. The quicker it goes, the happier I will be. But still, I have very little to complain about right now. Very little. So little that it can be summarized by one of my favorite words in my profession: negligible.