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!