Kimber's Navy Family

What has changed for us now that we have 4 kids? 1. My mom is always right. Don't tell my mom that. And maybe not always , but... yeah, my mom is always right . While I'm close to my mom anyways, I find myself calling her more and more to find out exactly what I should do, not get her advice and consider it, but, "Hey, Momma, what would you do? Tell me everything." My hubby isn't home for everything and I love having my mom by my side {even from a distance}. 2. Always looks on the bright side of life. Life is busy and messy and, well, sometimes not fun at all. While every week is pretty much one thing after another, this week was one of those weeks where it was one.thing.after.another. I psyched the kids up for a day and a half to go to the pumpkin patch with our homeschool group...and then our van broke down and was out of commission for 2 days. Because  I was sick last week , I had rescheduled everything to this week; I had to then re-reschedule

  What a day. What. A. Day. So this morning the toddlers came in my room yelling, "Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate!" We have been having a cup of hot chocolate every morning since we decorated for Christmas, so that they wanted a hhot chocolate wasn't a problem. The timing of their wish most certainly was. I had them wait. I got out of bed. I came to the kitchen for them to get into a fight over who gets which spoon. I warmed up breakfast. {Mommy tip: make huge batches of breakfast and heat it up over the next couple days. This week we had pancakes and oatmeal. This has made our mornings much smoother!} One of our toddlers had a stinky diaper that he did not want changed. He made it very clear he wanted to remain in his stinky diaper-- though no one wanted to be near him. In fact, he had to go to his room to calm down before I changed that diaper. When he finally emerged, his brothers were yelling, "HOT CHOCOLATE!" I told them if they keep yelling at me,

As luck would have it, the Navy brought an old friend back into our lives! I love that aspect on military life, the possibility of being stationed with friends again! Our neighbor from Hawaii just moved to South Carolina and now lives basically down the road from us. The last time I saw her, my oldest was about the age of her little 1-year old son. Now I have a 5-year old and 2-year old twins. She has a sweet, bubbly 1-year old who was content snacking on Plum Organic Puffs in a high chair while her and I caught up. As you can imagine, my boys were less than agreeable. 2 and a half is just a straight up hard to manage age. It is difficult to deal with when you have one child. It is even more difficult with two 2 and a half year olds. Even more difficult than that? When you also have an older sibling in the mix. The toddlers want everything their older brother touches. They take his toys, they try to climb in the chair he's sitting on. If he's playing on the floor, they wan

Picture taken by TwinBug Photography at twinbugphotography@yahoo.c om If you have read my blog post " 0-2 year old twin must-haves ," you know how I feel about having a housekeeper. However, things have changed for us. We moved from North Carolina to South Carolina (read " PCS to South Carolina ") and our financial situation has changed (student loans!). We moved away from our housekeeper in North Carolina and do not have plan to get one-- yet-- here in South Carolina. My husband and I have had many discussions regarding a housekeeper. While our opinion on having a housekeeper is remarkably similar, I still want to knee him in the... well, you know, whenever he says, "We really don't need a housekeeper. We really can do it just fine " (my emphasis). Who does the housework around here, if not the housekeeper? That's right! Me! ;) Our agreement is basically that we want to let our finances settle from the move, have a chance to adjust our f

Washington DC December 2011 One of the things about being a stay-at-home mom is that you never get a break. There is no "lunch hour." I can't tell my kids, "Sorry, guys, Momma is on her half." No. It is a 24/7 job. And when things are rough is when I am needed most. My husband and I were talking the other day about what it is like when he comes home and asks "So, what did you guys do all day?" or "Have you packed my lunch yet?" He said that sometimes he thinks that I think (follow that?) he can do whatever he wants when he leaves the house, that his job isn't hard. I told him flat out no way. I think his job is exceptionally challenging. I know he works hard. I know he studies hard. I know he is under a lot of pressure. The key difference between his job now ( college ) and my job ( stay-at-home mother ) is that when he's stuck on a difficult problem he can take 5, go get a cup of coffee, and approach the problem with a cleared m

The other night I wanted to look at a first word book with the toddlers. O wasn't sharing very well and was being a little wild, so I took C by the hand and asked him to help me find the book. I closed all the doors in the hallway before opening the baby gate-- no sneaking in the back bedrooms-- and let C through. As soon as O heard the gate squeak, he threw down the stolen and unshared toys and sprinted after us. C raced to the bookcase and yanked down D's (their older brother) favorite pop-up book. Knowing that pop-up books and toddlers don't mix, I tried to get C interested in a different book, the one we went down the hallway to get in the first place. C didn't want anything to do with board books, nope, only paper books for him. He pulled out book after book, flinging them on the floor. I kindly told him, "No, thank you!" and set him to work putting them back. O, in the meantime, ran to the other side of the bookcase and was surveying the scene. Mistaken

This is such a ridiculous problem, yet every time I encounter it, I'm unsure what to do. Most of the time, I shower at night after the kids have gone to bed. Once in a blue moon, for one reason or another, I need to shower in the morning when the kids are awake. It happened to me last month and I frantically texted my girlfriend who also has twin toddlers, "What do I do?!?!" There are a multitude of reasons as to why this is such a problem. #1. I can't shower at naptime. Last month, we officially separated the boys for naptime. We now have a Pack'N'Play standing in our room full time. Since our bedroom is very small in the first place, it is perpetually in the way. But we deal with it because now it takes less than 2 hours for the toddlers to fall asleep at naptime. What does this mean for showering? To shower at naptime, I would need to get all my shower stuff, my make up, my hair stuff, and my clothes (though I never can decide what I want to wear until I

This blog post on our bedtime routine was inspired by a post I read last night on "Mel's 2 Belles" called Bad Habits . Bedtime is probably the most challenging time of day. By the time bedtime rolls around, your mind is wandering to the bottle of wine you have chilling in the fridge and your body longs to collapse on the couch (with chocolate). Here was our old bedtime routine: Dinnertime sometime between 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm, depending on when I started cooking. After dinner, playing outdoors with the boys. 7:00 pm: bring the toddlers in for bath and pajama time (pajama to the left, pajama to the right, jamma, jamma, jamma, jamma, P! J!) Toddlers then meltdown through entire pajama routine. 7:15-7:30 pm: Toddlers go to bed early because Momma is done listening to meltdowns. 7:45 pm: Momma hollering outside to Husband and preschooler that it is probably time to possibly think about coming inside, maybe? 8:00 pm: Husband wrestles with preschooler through b

My own list of "You know you are a mother to twins when..." 1. You automatically start calculating how long something will last. Example 1: "A bag of 6 apples will last the toddlers 3 days, throw in the preschooler and the husband and it will last one day with two remaining apples... Okay, 2 bags for 2 days." Example 2: "I want to buy this shirt for me, but it has sequins (aka baby magnets) and must hang dry... I could probably wear it twice. Let's go with this one. I wanted another plain, washable t-shirt anyways..." 2. You buy two of everything. Two loaves of bread (which lasts about a week), two bunches of bananas (four days), two gallons of milk (almost a day and a half), two bottles of Ibuprofen (for the momma who is carrying around two 25 lb toddlers)... 3. You are always hungry. You sit down with a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of yogurt for the toddlers along with a yogurt and piece of toast for yourself. The toddlers wolf do

Motherhood teaches you a lot about yourself, about character flaws you didn't realize you had previously. For one, I've had to develop a thicker skin. I know, more than once, I had to consciously not take it personally that our son decided to say "Dada" before "Momma." Ironically, when he said "Dada," he wasn't even spending anytime with Daddy. Daddy was out to sea! As a logically thinking parent, it is wonderful that your son is saying Daddy. As a tired woman balancing a toddler, the Navy, and living away from family, why can't your son recognize all the hard work you put in and say "Momma"? Not only have I needed to put small things like that in perspective, but the larger things have forced me to thicken my skin and stand my ground as well. We recently went to parent orientation at my son's preschool. The teacher explained that on the first day, the students will be given a card to write their name on that will sit on the