Kimber's Five

Lately I have been telling my husband that I feel like a new person. I don't feel like I've grown or that some things are different... I feel like a brand new person. My thought process feels different, I feel differently about nearly everything, and my goals and priorities are different. When I trace back how I ended up here, the last 3 years in Washington state (our previous duty station) keep popping up in my brain. Those years changed me. For a long time, I thought those years defeated me. I didn't feel like I was enough. I felt like all of the goals that I had set for my life were pushed off for another 3 years (which they were). I felt like I couldn't make friends. I felt like people didn't understand me. I felt like my family was too big/too crazy or that maybe they didn't like my kids. I felt like life kept throwing us challenges, some bigger than I ever expected to face. I felt like my depression was going to swallow me and that I wouldn't make it ...

We are finally done having children. I have had 6 pregnancies-- 7 if you count the chemical pregnancy. Two of them were multiple pregnancies-- a set of identical twins that are now 7 years old and a set of triplets that we lost in pregnancy {would be 5 years old now}. I also lost a singleton in pregnancy {would be almost 11 years old now now}. I have 5 living children and 4 in heaven-- 9 total. I had retained placenta and hemorrhaged 2 weeks after giving birth to baby #5. I spent most of my last pregnancy on bedrest or "taking it easy," from 27 weeks on to when I delivered her. After she was born I battled post-partum complications and spent a lot of time taking it easy then. My post-partum complications were surgically repaired 7 months after baby #5 was born and required a partial hysterectomy. I have birthed and breastfed {for various amounts of time} 5 children. I have had 3 D&Cs. My body might no longer be needed for growth, life, and sustenance of my children, ...

We are getting ready to move away from our current duty station. We sold our house and we've bought our next house. We have packers coming here, contractors scheduled there, hotels booked. All of the months and weeks of planning are all finally coming together to now: Go Time. It is always weird to me when I get ready to leave a place. I start looking at things that I took for granted-- and possibly even disliked-- differently. The other morning I was walking up to our house after getting the newspaper and my bare foot stepped on a pebble on our driveway. I bent down to brush it off and heard the birds chirping, the sound of a car starting up the street. I heard my kids screaming at each other inside the house-- probably over who's turn it was to pick a show. I was struck with nostalgia. Our house felt so alive in that moment. Our street radiated familiarity. I could almost smell home, the entire state of Washington, and spring itself. Standing there, I took a mental snapshot...

One problem us moms have is running on empty. It happens to all of us. It's really hard to put into words when this happens and it isn't always clear why it happens. But it does happen. It comes around and when we hit empty, we can get stuck there for an hour, an afternoon, a couple days, a week, a month, a season... And just as mysteriously as it came upon us, it ebbs and flows away until it slowly dawns on us that it isn't so hard anymore. What does it mean to be running on empty? When I find myself running on empty, it feels like the little tasks become much harder. I find myself easily frustrated with the kids. The same routines day in and day out start feeling like heavy weights on my shoulders and I feel trapped by the monotony and the needs and the drudgery. It feels like, the baby gets sick, I get her down to nap, the toddler wakes her up, my older 3 boys start fighting, there is a stinky diaper to change, it is time to start dinner, it is time to clean the kitc...

Feeding our 5 children Feeding our big family requires planning. We have 5 children: 9 years old, 6 year old twins, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old. I tried meal planning, but our schedule is constantly changing. If the baby doesn't nap and the toddlers get sick and our elementary kids come home with too much homework, how do I commit to a meal I planned 3 days before? I found that I would grocery shop for meals that didn't get made, which meant ingredients I had to re-purpose, which meant waste, because the ingredients would go bad before I used them. Well-stocked pantry and a Costco run every 2 weeks   Because I am a woman in America, I of course have a not-so-small girl crush on Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. One of her concepts is having a well-stocked pantry. I will leave Ree Drummond to talk about what that means, so check out her post: "Stocking Up." With a well-stocked pantry, I have a lot of flexibility to make easy, on the fly meals for our...