I called home today and in the course of my phone call, the mention of asking B for a Brett Favre jersey for Christmas came up with my mom. She mentioned that since they lived in Packer country it might be a little easier to come up with a jersey than it would for B.

Anyway, what I forgot to mention was my hopes for a replacement Cheesehead, the one that replaces the one that my sweet little then-2-year-old nephew peed in right after the Packers won the Superbowl waaaay back when. So tonight as we watched the end of the very exciting win over the Chargers, I had to call home to check in and reassure them that I still am a Cheesehead at heart, and that I still love my Packers. But I couldn’t get through on the home phone so I figured they were on another call with probably one of my brothers also calling to remind them that even though they just live in the next town in Wisconsin, they, too, are still Cheeseheads at heart. So I called my dad’s cell phone, and got through with him and excitedly asked, “How about dem Packers?!” and made my Cheesehead request.

To which he replied that we’ll have to talk about it some other time, because right now he’s watching the Packers game and listening to the Brewers game and announcing at the race track and talking to me on the phone. All at the same time.

I might have to book him an appointment with the developmental therapists that are helping us with Anja while they’re here this winter.

And I think maybe they can just go ahead and keep them, because I am loving the new kids they replaced the old kids with.

We have been taking Anja in to the developmental specialists about some of her issues. When it comes down to it, between my history, our description of her behaviors, and their observations of her, they have seen that she has attention problems and no impulse control.  We’ve gotten a few ideas on ways to help her and even though we still have a long way to go with her, I’m grateful that they have been helping us with ways to parent her and haven’t even so much as mentioned the possibility of medication.

She still has a hard time at home, but we’re working on that and staying firm and I think it is working. More importantly, her behavior at school is great. Her teacher has a policy where they start out their day on a “3″ and if they have a good day of following the rules and behaving well they will remain on the 3. If they have problems through the day and are warned, they drop to a 2, and eventually to a 1. She had a few 2s but since we’ve been going to the therapists with her, she’s gotten a 3 every day! And now we have started a reward policy where if she gets a 3 every day in a week, she gets a poker chip and when she gets 4 or 5 chips, she gets to buy a book at the store.

Today I went to pick them up and I stared in awe as Isak waited at the school door for Anja to get out of class, and then they ran together, laughing and playing together the whole way, until they got to the pickup area. No fighting, no yelling, nothing. And THEN, as if my mind wasn’t already having a hard enough time comprehending this sudden change in behavior between those two, I came out to find them sitting at the picnic table outside coloring. Together. Quietly. On paper, not each other.

So aliens, consider this your early Christmas present. You can keep my kids, I’ll keep these sweet ones that you swapped them with.

I can’t count high enough to say in how many ways this makes me happy.

This week, in addition to the Wii, we bought a portable GPS receiver. We’ve been talking about getting it for a while now but we couldn’t really figure a good time to buy it. This week, however, B hit the monumentally old age of 35. This is one of the cooler gizmos we have - it was fun driving home from the restaurant with it telling us exactly where to drive and watching the road as it turned in front of us - especially nice when it’s dark outside to be able to see exactly how the road goes. I was surprised that they had all the streets on base labeled, although it did send us to Anja’s friend’s house down the street instead of our own house. At any rate, it’s going to be so much fun exploring now that we don’t have to worry about spending half of our time out just trying to figure out where we’re going.

And the best part? To test out the system, I included a slip of paper in the box for B’s “real” birthday present (the GPS is not just for him) to take the GPS to Germany and drive from Frankfurt to Munich for Oktoberfest with a specific address as the end location - staying at his uncle’s house. Walter Bean, this rivals your position as Chief of Master Plans! I managed to successfully pull off this surprise without him having the slightest suspicion of ANYTHING, from making the flights to the car rental to contacting his mom in Iceland so she could contact his uncle in Germany to see if he’d be able to stay there - all hotels are booked for the longest time before Oktoberfest even starts.

I’m finally converting B to the Church of Geek!

Today I indulged the inner kid in me, thinking the entire time about how nice it is sometimes to be a grown up and you get to make your own rules.

Wiiiiiiiiiii!

If there’s one thing that Isak takes after me, it’s his love of reading. His goal is to read the most this school year, as they’re being challenged to read at least 30 minutes a day. He has surpassed that on his own and is reading anywhere from an hour to 2 hours a night at bedtime. His assigned books are the Goosebumps books, which he’s on the second book now, but additionally, he’s finally gotten confident enough in his reading to tackle Harry Potter. He’s on his second book now, and I’m so excited that he finally gets to experience Harry Potter the way it was meant to be experienced, in book form.

Tonight he started reading without being told and being the mean mom I am, I interrupted him to brush his teeth for bed. I guess the 2nd Goosebumps book is good, because he can’t put it down…literally!

(Click picture to view larger version)

One of the things I love about the Navy is our enlisted ratings.  We’re different from the other branches of the military because for each job, we have a distinct rating badge (which is sewn on the left arm of our uniform with our rank).

However, there are a lot of rates!  And they change every now and then so as soon as you get to know them, you have to re-learn them.

Anyway, I found a quiz online that I thought would be fun to post, particularly to all my former-Navy family that I’m sure will not have seen a lot of these badges!

Enlisted Ratings Quiz