Hey everybody ... I know it's been forever.

Well, to make a lot of long stories really short, Jonathan and I are living in Houston again. (His unit refused to release him to get permanent orders to Fort Sill - we opted to just return to Texas instead of going active duty, because with his MOS, we would almost certainly have had another deployment right away.) We're in the process of buying a house. He's working with my dad (and is Reserve, of course, but he doesn't have drill until June), and I'm still a professional incubator and punching bag.
Baby Charlotte (yes, it's a girl!) is reportedly joining us on August 1, but that's based on her size at the ultrasound. I was small at birth, and I think she will be too, so I'm expecting her a bit earlier than that. At any rate, that makes me 24 weeks and some days - that's 6 months to the laypeople. (According to the dates, though, I'm somewhere around 27 weeks - but I always knew that was wrong, because my cycle is not exactly normal.) She moves around a lot most days, but sometimes she just likes to chill. For a long time, she refused to kick her daddy - she'd move or just stop kicking anytime he put his hand on the belly to feel her kicks. But she finally decided to give him the honor of kicking him a couple days ago. It was exciting. We saw her on ultrasound two days before we moved, on February 29. She made it obvious that she is a she - probably because she was tired of Mommy calling her a boy. She sucked her fingers, moved around a lot, and refused to let us get a good picture of her face. She'd hold still long enough to where we could see her face on the monitor, but not quite long enough to get a picture. And half the time, she had her hands in front of her face anyway. She likes to be a punk. Her favorite game is "let's decide when Mommy has to pee." She knows exactly where the bladder is, and kicks it as soon as it starts invading her space. I'm carrying her rather compactly - some days I hardly look pregnant at all. I know that some women would love that, because I don't have the huge belly that they had, but trust me, it's no fun. First, she's constantly kicking livers, pancreas, and gallbladders, because she is right in among them instead of pushing out from them. Second, she's kinda stretched out, which makes it hard to sit down a lot of times, because her head or legs or whatever will be in the way. And third, it's just no fun. What's the fun of being pregnant if nobody can tell?! And I'm pretty sure that the people at our church think that she's not due until like December.

It kinda feels like we're living from one crisis or unsolveable problem to the next right now. First the whole thing with his stupid stupid unit, and then our apartment in Lawton tried to cause some problems (succeeded on some of them). Moving was tough. Really tough. Finding and buying a house is a real pain, but renting is not really an option here - apartments in this area are a bit out of our price range. We've been staying with some friends (some really really good friends) since the beginning of March, which is great, but also frustrating sometimes. We've been fighting with the bank for the last 2 weeks - they weren't depositing Jonathan's payroll checks. Yeah, that has been a blast. We're going back to our old bank - we'd had to change when we went to Oklahoma and regretted every minute of it. We've also had some problems with Jonathan's family. I'm not going into details, but boy are in-laws a pain sometimes.
And finally, we cannot figure out how to find me a doctor. Tricare is not helpful when we call them, and according to the website, the closest obstetrician is in Galveston. Yes, I know that this is very very bad. I know I need a doctor. Don't bother telling me, because I already know, and my mom reminds me every day. I'm seriously about to tell her to make an appointment for me and pay for it herself, because we sure can't afford to unless Tricare gets at least some of it. We have coverage of some kind for 180 days from the end of his orders, which takes us to the end of August. Not that I can figure out what that means anyway. Amy, if you are still out there - do you have any help to offer, since you've dealt with Tricare in this area for years?

LIFE. IS. WEIRD.

Apparently, our problem fixed itself.

CAN I GET A HOORAY? Because now I don't have to repack and move, nor do I have to worry about having money for the baby, nor do I have to worry about another deployment...

Also, happy Valentine's day. TONITE WE CELEBRATE.