Transition

Whew!

Well, we're here in the great state of Texas. Our mantra for about the last week in Maryland and during the 1500+ mile drive down here was pretty much: Eat. Sleep. Texas (the goal).

We survived the yard sale and actually sold or gave away most everything but the couch...which didn't weigh that much, honestly, so it wasn't such a big deal to load onto the truck. We were trying to keep our weight down because we were paying movers to move us this time, and they charge you based on weight. Z's back and my hip just can't handle the loading and unloading process -- although we could have packed it all up ourselves.

We kept all the bedroom furniture, just for some continuity for the kids, especially A. We did sell the Thomas the Train toddler bed because Miss K turns 3 on Sunday and it's time for a "big girl" bed. Oh, she could still fit in the toddler bed; she'd probably still fit in it three years from now, she's so small. But the hassle of trying to move that thing combined with her birthday, we just decided to ditch the cumbersome plastic ungirly bed and get her something that will last her a bit longer. Like, through high school.

So in the meantime we're "camping out" on air mattresses and a love seat the previous owners left in the house we're renting here in Texas. I'm hoping the air mattresses hold up until the furniture gets here, because my darling K loves to bounce and jump on the "bouncy beds!".

Everything has come together beautifully! We survived the drive down here, during which Mother Nature threw nearly everything in her arsenal at us: snow, sleet, freezing rain, regular unfrozen rain, and some hail that skirted just north of us that we didn't have to drive through (yay). At least there were no tornados or hurricanes. I suppose we could say that the state of Texas hailed us on the way in....or maybe it was just warning us of the storms to come as it heats up.

I had to drive the Dodge with the kids, and Z drove his newly fixed old Honda down. The whole trip. The kids were actually pretty super about the whole thing, though the trek could be summed up with that old poem:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good,
She was very, very good...
And when she was bad, she was horrid!

A is so well behaved. He had one fit on the second day, about 2 hours before we stopped, but that was it. His temperamental energetic sister, on the other hand, had tantrums about, oh, every 2 hours -- the entire trip -- because she was bored and couldn't run around 28 hours at a time like she generally does. God Bless whoever invented those car DVD players. I strapped those suckers to the headrests and started a movie if the howling got really bad. Technology, sanity savers, whatever. I love 'em.

We were "pounded" by the church when we arrived here. For those unfamiliar with the term, that does not mean we got a beat-down for a welcome. "Welcome to Texas! Let me introduce you to my sweet left hook!" Rather, it means various people supplied our pantry with a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, that sort of thing, and stocked us up with toilet paper and paper towels too. Everyone is very nice, which is a relief. There is a lady here that is a cross between Tricia Hill in TN and April Brady in MD, so she is going to be a lot of fun.

Kids are adjusting. K already has 2 new best friends at church and has enjoyed running around the building, pastor's yard, and local restaurants with them. Yes, they ran around the back sitting area of a mom-and-pop Italian restaurant on Sunday, much to the chagrin of 3 sets of parents. Fabulous food, by the way.

A has not adjusted as well. Any change in his "normal" routine can cause issues, and we just changed everything. His school, church, home, therapies -- everything. We have no real furniture in the new house, so he can't even see something he recognizes other than his immediate family members. A had a couple of meltdowns on Sunday -- and by "meltdown", I mean crying, howling, and kicking and hitting whoever was next to him. Curiously, he has stopped spitting on people -- which, of course, is great.

We have noticed a HUGE increase in A's stimming -- flapping his hands, pacing and hopping, and even some spinning in circles again. He hasn't done that for a very, very long time -- almost 2 years -- so this made Z and I sit up and take notice. A has also had to go off by himself a lot, both at the business meeting Sunday evening and at Bible study last night. He just needed to get away from the crowd of unfamiliar people, I guess, and observe for a while where it was a little quieter.

Well, I have to go and get my keys from the pastor's wife. Karl and Karen took us around town today showing us various things, and apparently I lost my keys in their van. Thank God, because if the keys were anywhere else I'd have no clue how to get back to all the places we went today.