Kimber's Navy Family

I love my parents. Not even a little bit, like, a lot. As I've grown up, they have gone from being the World's Best Parents to The World's Best Parents AND My Closest Friends. They are so supportive of our Navy family and welcome us with open arms and an open door anytime we want to visit or even move in with them in between duty stations or during deployments. However, as great as they are, living with family can be a sticky situation even with the closest and most understanding families so I wanted to write this blog post to air some of my complaints that I have with my family publicly without consulting them first (best way to handle family drama, right?). 1. My mom always has laundry for me to put away. She comes around to all of our rooms, finds and collects the dirty laundry we have stashed in corners, washes, dries, and folds it and then puts these HUGE piles of clean, folded laundry at the foot of my bed for ME to put away. Like I have ALL THIS TIME to put away l...

We have 4 children-- a 1st grader, twin preschoolers, and a toddler. I'm 28+ weeks pregnant and my husband is active duty Navy on submarines. When putting our children to bed, there are three different ways that it happens. The first is when I'm not pregnant and somewhat helpful in the evenings; this would be the two adults approach. The second happens either when I'm pregnant, exhausted, or my husband has been working really long hours and trying to squeeze in all the time he can with the kids. This is when Daddy puts the kids to bed. The third pretty much only happens when my husband works super late, has duty, or is underway. (For all you non-Navy folk, duty is when my husband stays the night on the submarine and underway-- or deployed-- is when the submarine is out to sea.) Bedtime has always been a "Daddy thing" at our house, so if he's home, he is in charge at bedtime and I just assist. With his Navy schedule, a lot of times he is coming home right wh...

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...

Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who has one child, a singleton 16-month old little boy. She kept telling me she doesn't know "how I do it" with two 16-month olds, all that waking up in the night. Truth is, our toddlers sleep through the night. We put them to bed at 8 pm and they wake up at 8 am. Sleeping through the night is a hot topic with young children. The first year, sleeping through the night is a relative term. A newborn needs to eat more frequently than a 10-month old. After the one-year mark, I want to sleep through the night, fully. I don't want a relative term. Sometimes I find that other moms use "sleeping through night" when they don't mean it. I have heard moms say their children sleep through the night when 1. they co-sleep 2. they "only" go in the nursery once or twice or 3. they have no set bedtimes. My first "slept through the night." We usually put him to bed around 8 pm. After a year old, he usually ...

When you are pregnant with twins, people are full of advice on "how to do it." I did not join my local twin chapter until after my twins were born (they were about three months old), though I wish that I had. I would have loved the discussions on how other mothers of twins "did it." Throughout the whole pregnancy, I tried to go with the flow. I had a birth plan, but was prepared to throw that out the window. I had a feeding plan ( breastfeeding ), but kept telling myself I was prepared to throw that out the window as well (had a very hard time ending that chapter). As for scheduling, I felt that we would see what we decided to do when the time came. I did not schedule my first. He breastfed on demand. He ate meals on demand (I'm a natural "grazer" and I think I passed that down to him). He slept in our bed. He napped in the car or at friends' houses. It was much more day-by-day. I knew that twins would be different. However, when you are pregnant...

 After a year with twins, we have been through our share with baby products. I try everything that comes my way or that fits in our budget. Here is what has worked well for us and some things that haven't. 1. Graco Pack'N'Play Before the babies were mobile, this was their go-to place while we were home. We knew where they were and that they were safe from a very "helpful" older brother. For travel, we used them as cribs. Now that they are a year, they are a great way to keep them contained when we play outside with D or if we are doing a less-friendly baby activity, such as a Legos. We love our Pack'N'Play. Bright Stars Play Yard in front 2. Bright Stars Play Yard Major thumbs down. My parents have a Graco Pack'N'Play at their house and we have a Graco Pack'N'Play. We bought a Bright Stars Play Yard because it was cheaper than buying another Graco Pack'N'Play-- big mistake. It looks nice, but it is a total pain to fol...

"Three Boys" by Pamela Ellis I've been reading through some of my old blogs and it made me want to do a follow-up on our family schedules and dinner plans . Things were a little intense there for a little while. I'm not sure at the time I realized how busy we actually were. Now, with one-year olds , I can see how much our schedule has relaxed, and-- I must say-- I like it. Around October of last year, I became fed-up with our drive-thru diet and quick, high calorie food solutions. We went through our freezer and made a commitment to eat better . Well, I made a commitment for us to eat better. My husband was still a little shell-shocked that I had thrown out an entire wholesale box of Chips Ahoy... After six months, we are eating even better than I originally intended. At first I was just going to remove hydrogenated oils from our family diet. Taking away that preservative naturally lead to healthier choices and I made it a habit to actually cook dinner, even ...

There was a point in time where I felt sexy. I could (and often did) spend hours applying make-up in new and interesting ways. The mornings were a time for reading, coffee, open closet doors, trying on shoes, but were spent, most often, sleeping. I went to college, had a job, friends who would invite me to join them for dinner after the sun went down. There is a part of me that remembers being indignant when a restaurant in New Hampshire was already closed at 10 pm. The babies want Momma's lap everytime I sit down. North Carolina January 2012 I had a conversation with a friend the other day about being a stay-at-home mom. Having worked up until she had her twins, she said that what she misses the most is feeling witty . She said she misses the banter at her work place. It really stuck with me. We discussed how you make a joke with your spouse and it often falls on deaf ears. You are home after a long day and want to relax, a baby is crying, a basketball game is on, so...