Sweet Home Alabama!

At least that's what Sean said as he got out of the truck upon our arrival. Good to know he was excited. We finally arrived in Huntsville on 30 December. We broke the trip up into two days rather than pushing the girls for one really long one. I think it worked about better for everyone involved. The only one who gave me any grief to speak of was Pepper, the cat, who meowed the whole way, both days. Nothing a little bit of music won't drown out. Other than that, the trip was relatively uneventful. (Pepper disappeared about 2 days after we got here. She's always been an inside/outside cat and we assumed she would be fine. She was 13 but seemed to be healthy. She is a native of Alabama so perhaps she hitched a ride back down to Ft. Rucker to visit the fam. At least that's what I'll tell myself.) Our homegoods were already at the house upon our arrival. John stopped in Huntsville on his drive back to Texas after his class was over in Virginia. He was very productive; not only were the home goods delivered, but the cable was installed and he had a fence put in. While it was a little crazy arriving to a bunch of boxes, it was better than arriving at a completely empty house and having to rush to get that stuff taken care of. We've pretty much unpacked everything. This house definitely has more room than the last so we'll need to purchase some furniture (darn!). I'll just have to force myself to shop. How ever will I do it? I'm sure I will muddle through somehow. I finally got Sean enrolled in school. Alabama has this lovely "blue form" that immunizations have to be transferred on to. And then you have to have an appointment to get that done. What a mess. They could have enrolled him temporarily without a social security card or birth certificate but no go on the shot records. Seems a little bassackwards to me, but they never asked my opinion (fools). He's loving school and is doing very, very well. I have to drop him off and pick him up every day as we live to close for the bus. I never, ever could have realized the well-organized system of health care that Layla had in Texas. Not until I have had to rebuild it from scratch, all at once. It's been fun to say the least (can you detect the sarcasm?). The first week was merely spent getting a new home health agency for Layla so that we could get food and bags for her. We, thanks to John, finally got that taken care of and I'm glad to say that she didn't have to go without food. The next battle was getting an off-post pediatrician for her. We actually met with one on post and she was wonderful. But, there are only 2 pediatricians, one of which Layla needs to be able to see at a moments notice. I went with that for a couple of days until I called to make an appointment for Sean and was told the wait was 15 days. What?! (followed by several expletives that I will leave out) My recourse? To take him to an urgent care facility. I then went on to ask, very poilitely, if the same would be true if I was calling about Layla. She told me yes. Unacceptable!!!!! (more expletives) So, back to the hospital/insurance people we went. And I'm happy to say that we have an appointment with an off-post pediatrician (for Layla only) on Tuesday. I'm sure we're probably already well known at the lovely Fox Army Health Center. We also have appointments with all other specialists (neurology, neurosurgery, GI, orthotics, probably something I'm leaving out) set up for Feb. I'm currently working on getting PT, OT and speech set up for her. Seems like they will all be at Sean's school (1/2 mile away) which won't be too bad. However, I will expect great things from these therapists unless Kim, Stephanie, and Jennifer are willing to relocate or commute weekly.........We could only be so lucky. I guess I should give an update on Chubs. She's bigger every day and is still a wonderful, happy baby. She is rather loud and apparently has things to say. Lord help us when she can actually talk. It will be another Sean. Maybe that will work out and we can just have them listen to one another. Leave us out of it. She's getting ready to crawl. She can push up very well with her arms and today managed to get up onto her knees a little bit. Mostly she just pushes herself backwards and then gets stuck somewhere she doesn't want to be. Then the "ma" and yelling starts. What a goof. As I've been told recently, more times than I care for, I do have my hands full. I will try to get some pics uploaded once I find the camera. :) Also, we had to get a home phone as cell phone reception stinks out here (cell phone numbers are still the same as in Texas). New home phone is 256.489.4711 and our address is 103 Slack Water Court, Huntsville, AL 35824 in the event you want to send large sums of money, precious gems, or rare antiquties.