New year, new things!

I was excited to see a friend post a new blog a year after having her child. It made me think about my blog. I haven’t posted anything since November!! Lots of things have happened since then. We moved back to my hometown of Odessa in December. The reasoning behind that was because Brad was having some changes in his job, he would now be gone for a month at a time. Being so far away from family and being alone didn’t sound like fun to me so we agreed to move back to my hometown. Brad has actually been home a lot more than expected because his “home away from home” was Libya. Well we all know how that’s turned out. He’s been home for about 40 + days now, poor guy. I know he likes to be off and enjoy time with myself and Marie but I also know he’s a working kind of guy and needs to work!! He’s supposed to be going to another place overseas but at the moment we don’t know where that will be. We are slowly making changes to our new home. This past weekend we finished painting the walls in Marie’s room so I can get some pictures up on the walls.

Marie also turned one!! This past year has been something else with her. Changing to a new daycare was almost a disaster. She would cry and cry every day when I would drop her off. It broke my heart. The situation made me really reconsider working and staying at home with her. Everything is great now. Its wonderful hearing the daycare women tell me stories about Marie and how advanced she is. I was told one morning that Marie was a handful. The daycare lady didn’t know how I handled her all the time. Just when I think I don’t have a good enough reason for losing my mind someone validates my feelings by telling me things like that!! Marie recently got tubes put in her ears because of chronic fluid and ear infections. She was babbling a lot before the tubes were placed and it seems she is connecting more words to objects. I pointed to a picture of her when she was quite a bit smaller and said “baby.” She looked at it and went on about her business. Later that afternoon she picked up the picture took it to Brad and said “baby.” We were both shocked and excited. Our little baby is growing up. She is officially a toddler. But I still love it when I get the chance to hold her in my arms and rock her to sleep.

I also started a new job at the Texas Tech Pediatric clinic in Odessa. It was a good career move, so I am excited. It’s hard changing jobs when you were comfortable with the people you work with. I also never thought I would miss some of my very loyal patients that I had in Victoria but I certainly do. However, I am getting more and more wonderful patients in Odessa. Texas Tech is just a great learning environment. I work with great physicians and other PA’s. The patient load is a little different, but I’m not complaining. We are switching over to a new electronic medical records system, which always makes life exciting. I truly love what I do for a living!!

The move has been a little stressful on this McDaniel family. But I think it will eventually be the best thing for us at the moment. Brad and I plan on having more children and to have my family just a few blocks away makes that idea more exciting!