5 Confessions

1. I'm a great singer, but I don't sing.  I lost my voice. No, not my speaking voice, my singing voice. From the time I was 5 and discovered my love for music, singing was something I couldn't go a day without doing. I used to sing in my room for hours. Whether they were songs I had made up or belting out my favorite popular tunes, I loved that feeling of raising my voice in a beautiful tone and discovering just how far my range could go. But over the years, I never really felt comfortable singing in front of other people. From a young age, my singing seemed to be more of a nuisance to those around me. Never once did anyone say (aside from a couple close friends) that I sounded good. And no, it's not because I sound terrible. I AM a good singer! So naturally, I felt embarrassed by my voice.  Even now I'm embarrassed to sing in front of my husband… the person who I'm most vulnerable with. I really want to change this shame into pride. Especially now that I have my own daughter, I never want to make her feel ashamed of herself. I plan on singing to her and encouraging her to sing with me. No matter how loud or off key her singing may be someday, I vow to never make her feel ashamed of expressing herself.

 

2. I'm too lazy to be creative. Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? Well, it is. I've considered myself an artist since I was little. To be specific, it was when I won 1st place at my first art fair in kindergarten. Throughout my life, I was praised for my artistic ability. In high school and then a short time in college I got to explore my ability even more taking quite a range of art classes. But now, at the age of 23 I honestly can't remember the last time I drew/painted/assembled anything remotely creative.  Why do you ask?  It's just pure laziness mixed with a fear of not being good enough… for myself. I'm my own worst critic. Plus I have a little OCD which makes actually finishing a project that I'm 100% proud of nearly impossible. I feel like I have all this creativity and original ideas tucked away in the back of my mind, but I don't have the energy to bring them to reality. Again, maybe my daughter will save me from my creative rut. Once she's 2 or 3 we'll start doing little projects everyday. Maybe that will get my creative juices flowing and well as seeing if she inherited my artistic ability. Only time will tell.

 

3. I fear the future. What I mean is that I worry about all the unknowns in my life. Where we will be in five years... How many kids we'll have... Will we experience any major heartbreaks in the foreseeable future... Will my kids hate me when they're older? I know life isn't perfect, and it will never be. I just can't seem to stress about life and wondering if we'll ever truly we content. I guess I need to just keep praying for peace. It's all in God's hands. I can't control how our life unfolds. I just want to look back at my life in 20 years and see all the fond, wonderful, POSITIVE memories and experiences and not always ask, "What if?"

 

4. I want another baby. GASP! I know, why on earth am I thinking about this now?! My daughter is ONLY 3 months old. You tell me. I can't really explain the feelings that I have. Before I got pregnant with Eisley and even while I was pregnant, if you would have asked me, "When do you think you want to TRY for baby #2?" I would have said, "Probably when she's 1 1/2 - 2 years old..." You know, when most people start thinking about giving their baby a brother or sister. But there's just this desire inside of me to go through pregnancy, labor and delivery, and bringing another sweet baby into this world, sooner rather than later. My husband is very leery about this idea. He wants to wait until we pay off more debt, maybe live in a 3 bedroom apartment or house, just have time to enjoy only having one child for at least a couple years. I totally get where he's coming from. But still, these feelings remain. I guess I'll just push them deep down [at least until her 1st birthday ;) ]

 

5. I want a lot of tattoos. By a lot, I mean maybe 5. I don't have a very high pain tolerance but I LOVE the looks of tattoos. I have one. The word "faithful" on my wrist that I got on our honeymoon. My husband has 7. You also have to have money to get tattoos. Oh yeah, and some sort of idea of what you want. I'll just keep dreaming until I can think of some.

 

 

It's a new year, here's where we are...

Well I can officially say my daughter was born LAST year. Holy cow. That makes it seem so long ago that I gave birth. So much has changed since we welcomed her into the world...

She is now a little over 3 months old. She has quite the little personality. It's beautiful to see how much she has changed. She smiles all the time now. When she sees me or Craig her whole face lights up. My favorite time of the day is right when she wakes up. All though it may be early, walking into her room and seeing the big grin appear on her face as soon as she notices me, makes my heart melt. She has almost laughed about a dozen times. It usually ends up just being a little chuckle. You can tell that she is trying so hard to let out a big laugh. She gets excited when she plays with her toys. She kicks her legs and squeals with delight. She's discovered that she can scream! As soon as she does it once, the screams just keep coming. She grabs things now. Anything that touches her hand, she grasps. If she sees an object in front of her she slowly move her hands towards it and bring it to her mouth. And she drools ALL THE TIME! Her doctor assures us she's not teething yet. To simply put it, a baby doesn't know it's not socially acceptable to just let your mouth hang open and slobber, so why not! I know all of theses things are just the normal 3 month old milestones, but especially with your first baby it's so exciting to witness all these new developments.

We also recently moved. Back home again, in INDIANA!! We are now only 1 hour away from everyone we know! We're still getting readjusted here and Craig is getting used to his new job, but I know soon (as we always do) we'll be settled.

A big thing I want to work on for myself in this new year is not living with regret. Unfortunately there are many things in my life that I wish had went differently. I''m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. It may take me a while to realize why certain things happened... but life is all about learning as you go. Not constantly second guessing yourself.

Still a work in progress.

 

 

It's hard work being this cute all the time...

Have you ever seen a more beautiful face?!

Growing like a weed.

Just a quick post today. I can't believe how much change a month and a half makes. Here's what I'm talking about...

 On the left: 4 1/2 weeks old  ...

On the right: 11 1/2 weeks old ...

It's crazy how much I all ready miss her laying on my chest all balled up, yet I'm so proud that when I hold her now she can hold her head up. What a change... pretty soon I'll be holding her on my hip. Ugh. I'm going to go cry now.

Hello 2012!

Our life is a'changing! It's a new year and new things are happening for our little family. We are moving on from Missouri and back to our home state of Indiana! We can't wait, honestly. Yes, we just moved to our current apartment only 4 months ago but that's easy to forget now that we'll only be living and hour from family and friends as opposed to 4 hours. It will make a lot of things so much easier. We can visit people without having to plan a trip in advance and pack clothes for a couple days. We can have people over for dinner. We can actually have some date nights! Ahhh! The possibilities are endless...

The only downside about moving again is the packing. Oh, and MOVING. Our poor family has helped us move 7 different times in the last 3 years. Ridiculous, I know. It's part of being a military family.

 

What our living room looks like...

 

We recently celebrated Eisley's first Christmas. It was so amazing to share that special holiday with her. We started some little family traditions like making a breakfast casserole, dancing to Christmas music all morning... you know, the usual. She really makes everything so much better. It's amazing how someone so small can make your heart so big (wow, that was cheesy).

I can say that life has got a lot easier in the past several weeks. We know our daughter... who she is, what she likes and doesn't like. She's become much happier and smiles and coos all the time. I don't get so nervous taking her out in public and am much more relaxed when she starts crying. All in all, I think Craig and I have this whole parenting thing down. We learn more and more everyday but overall I say we are doing a pretty good job.

I have noticed lately that I have TONS of "mommy guilt." I find myself wishing I would have done certain things differently or I am really hard on myself for things beyond my control. I really hate that about myself and I don't want to live my life in regret. It wears me down. I'm still extremely hard on myself about how breastfeeding turned out for us. In one of my first updates after she was born I described how we had problems latching on in the hospital and little to no success once we were home. Well around 2 and 1/2 weeks we got her latch right and I began nursing her in between her feedings of formula/pumped breast milk. (Here's where that guilt/regret kicks in...) What I should have done is nursed her EVERY time she was hungry. I'm not sure why I continued bottle feeding once her latch was right. I think I was worried about her not getting enough to eat. I realize now that breastfeeding in supply and demand... I should have only nursed her. Ugh. I can't shake that regret. I miss breastfeeding and I feel like a failure. That was the one thing I wanted so badly to work out. But, I'm working on it. I'm working on not beating myself up. She's happy. She's healthy. She's gaining weight. Maybe we're just not meant to breastfeed.

My advice to any other mommies-to-be out there, is to really educate yourself before your baby is born. Know all the facts. Know how to work through problems that may arise.

I'm really excited for 2012. We get to watch Eisley grow. I can't wait to see how much she changes with each month!