Kimber's Navy Family

One hundred and forty-four days. When I say it aloud, it feels like a lot. And a short amount of time, because I know it should have been longer. It should have been longer because my husband had to stay behind and finish a school for the Navy, PNEO (Prospective Nuclear Engineering Officer). The timing of his class meant he had to stay behind and finish PNEO for a couple extra weeks after his crew had already left. Those were weeks of bliss. I'm sure for him it was challenging-- PNEO is a lot of studying. But, from my perspective, the PNEO schedule was much better than the boat schedule. He would study in the morning, come home for lunch, study in the afternoon, and come home shortly after I picked the children up from school. It felt like I actually got to spend time with my husband. It was the perfect way to spend our last couple weeks before deployment. Because, in the blink of an eye, our lazy mornings in bed together were gone. Our family evenings together were gone. O...

You know what never gets easier? Breakfast. And heading out to school in the morning just makes the mornings even CRAZIER. One of the biggest problems that I have with my children at mealtimes (outside of the kid that can make mealtime a 10 hour event) is that they suddenly will STOP eating something. Why? I don't know. We will go weeks with all 5 of our kids eating breakfast well and then suddenly breakfast is a battle ground again! For instance, for awhile our boys really enjoyed eating cereal in the morning. Then I started having the problem that halfway through a bowl of cereal, one of them would burst into tears saying he didn't want Captain Crunch, he wanted Mini Wheats. Or one of our boys would eat a whole bowl of cereal, ask for a second, eat two bites out of it, then say he was done. So here are my tips to make breakfast a little less crazy. 1. Establish routines During the week when I have to get 5 children out the door in the morning for school or daycare, I ...

I've been having a lot of conversations lately, mostly with my best friend, about parenting. I think her and I are both at this point where we are moving from one phase of parenting to the next. For my best friend, she's been adjusting to life with three children. Her oldest is a year away from kindergarten. Her youngest is approaching her first birthday. For me, we've been adjusting to life with five children. This is my second year with three children in elementary school. Our oldest is in 3rd grade and it's his last year in the single digits. He turns 10 years old next year! (10 years old! I've been changing diapers for a DECADE.) Our twins are in 1st grade. My youngest recently turned one and our fourth is becoming a full-fledged preschooler. I had a hysterectomy earlier this year and so, for the first time after our youngest child turned one, we aren't considering when we should have our next baby. I had a conversation with her the other night and she was...

I had a bit of a weird experience today. I went to my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group and each table has a mentor mom. Some of the tables had mentor moms like you would expect-- grown children, grandchildren-- but most tables had moms like me. Moms with 9 year olds. None of them had babies in the house anymore-- my youngest two are 3 years old and 1 year old-- but one gal, her youngest was 4 years old. I feel like I should have been empowered seeing that I could be a mentor mom. Instead, I felt like, oh crap. WHY DON'T I HAVE MY LIFE TOGETHER. Just that morning my oldest son (in 3rd grade) was in trouble for fighting with one of his 1st grade brothers. After breakfast, I found packed lunch pails strewn about the dining room instead of put in backpacks, like I specifically said. Our 1st graders went in their room and pulled out art instead of brushing their teeth and getting socks on. The baby spent the morning climbing furniture and emptying drawers. And our 3 year...

When I have sat down to think about my blog and the direction I want it to go in, the first thing I think about is, "Why did I start blogging in the first place?" The question is closely tied to my life. I started blogging because I like writing. I like writing and felt that I couldn't do a lot of it with a toddler and infant twins. I felt like we had a busy life that was somewhat different than the civilian friends I know because my husband is in the military. I felt like we are a military family trying to put a lot of emphasis on family , because we do know that my husband is going to be career military, staying in until he retires. I felt like in the community of military families, it is good for us to talk about our search for "normalcy" and to stick together with our unique set of challenges. I felt like talking about these challenges in a public way-- on my blog-- would help shed light on our community and to overlap the similarities as a military family w...

Military spouse or not, online parenting forums are flooded with questions on traveling with children. As a military spouse, traveling with children is inevitable, even if just for a PCS. So, how does one travel with children? For starters, pick your mode of transportation. There are things I like about flying and things I like about driving. With flying, I like that it shortens travel time. With driving, I like that I can pack as much as my mini van can hold: snack bags, en route entertainment, as much clothing as I want, etc... The flying versus driving argument is usually solved by what we plan on doing when we get there and how long we plan on staying. When we fly, I pick my airline wisely. I prefer to fly Southwest with our big family. I can change our tickets up to 24 hours in advance with no change fee. I like that each paid seat has 2 free bags included with the ticket price. And in-cabin pets are only $100. All of those aspects make it the friendliest airline for our...

We've passed the 100th day of school for our 2nd grader and twin kindergartners. It was a big adjustment for me going from one child in school to three children in school all day. And now, for the first time ever, we have more kids in school than out of school home with me. I thought I would write a little piece about how amazing it is only having 2 home all day and 3 in school. 1. Mornings can be busy. Above is an actual picture of me getting the kids ready for school. I think my favorite part of the morning is when sneakers go missing right before we walk out the door, a child is somehow naked when moments before he was fully clothed, or when the toddler raids the already packed lunch pails. Actually, no. I love when I meal prep breakfast for the week and the children refuse to eat it. Wait, it's also fun when there are no jackets in the house... or the children won't wear the jackets... or they try to wear the wrong jackets (you are a boy's size 6... you reall...

I go through phases in regards to house cleaning, where I can't function without a housekeeper and our bathrooms are covered in toothpaste and our floors with dirt clots, dragged in from muddy boots, and there is a layer of crumbs on every surface. Other times, having a housekeeper is more of an inconvenience-- making sure to have the house tidy on a certain day at a certain time, keeping the children out of her way, and possibly getting out of the house while she's here. Plus the expense. Currently, we are in the latter category. So, for the time being, we are back to cleaning our house, 5 kids and all. So how do you clean with 5 kids? Well, our youngest is an infant, so I don't have much to worry about with her, save for feedings and naps interfering. I tend to do loud cleaning, like vacuuming, right after she wakes up from nap. That way she's happy and content to bounce in her Excersaucer. For the in depth cleaning, like the bathrooms, I try to do that when she...