Kimber's Five

I finished my first semester back in college taking a full load of classes-- five classes, actually. Last spring, I was nervous signing up for that class load. We were getting ready to make a cross country move. My husband was deployed. We were in the process of building our house at our new duty station. It felt like it would end being a lot of work transitioning our children and settling into our new home. I wasn't sure how that would workload would translate onto my schedule. Would I be able to support all of the needs of my family as well as support a full load in college? As a sort of compromise, I signed up for online classes. While I knew we would want childcare for our two toddlers, we would be able to take a flexible approach to how that childcare would look. We were able to find a less expensive preschool for them, giving our four-year old four full days at preschool and our two-year old two half days at preschool. Any extra hours I needed for our two-year old could ...

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 ...

Is it possible to be a feminist stay-at-home parent {specifically: a stay-at-home mom}? I find myself repeatedly defending my position, even to fellow feminists. One of the big points the feminists make to me is: how can I fight the patriarchy if I am submitting to the patriarchy? For me to answer that, I suppose we need to decide what our bar as a feminist is. Is a feminist someone who plays by the Boys' Rules or is a feminist someone who is fighting for gender equality? My position is someone who is fighting for gender equality and, thus, I do not feel that I am submitting to the patriarchy simply by choosing to be a stay-at-home spouse, a much-needed position in my home. To which I hear... well, is that a much needed position in your home because that is what you have been conditioned to believe? No. No, because I would say 9/10 the people questioning me do not have children. Do not move every 1-3 years. Do not have a spouse in a career path where they are rarely home an...

Chivalry, as it is seen today, doesn't have anything to do with knights, courts, courtly love, or "favors" (tokens of unrequited love). Chivalry today has to do with a code on how men should treat women. These include: opening doors for women, giving a woman your jacket if she's cold, opening her door, pulling her chair out for her... on and on. What's wrong with how women were treated? Why should chivalry be dead? I mean, if you start looking back on women's rights , it's deplorable. Women were not seen as equals. Even Elizabeth I said, "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too." Jane Austen dedicated her energy highlighting the struggles of women living under the laws where they couldn't inherit property, they couldn't work, and they couldn't vote. Without a white male family member taking care of them, women were destitute. Around 1900, women were s...

There is one aspect of military spouse life that I do not think that I can ever get used to: isolation. I feel like I make my own memories. That sounds like such a small thing, but as our family has grown and we have moved time after time, I've realized I really hate it. What do I mean make my own memories? Well, my husband is rarely home or with me. Sea duty doesn't mean he's working a 9-5 job when he isn't deployed. Even when he is "home" or "in port" he has schools he has to attend, training to go to, a boat to work on, on and on. He often leaves before the kids and I get up and gets home after they are in bed (sometimes after I am in bed). For awhile, he had literally 2 days off a month and they weren't even on the same weekend. So I'm not making memories with my husband, living day to day life with him. Sharing time with him and sharing the kids with him. I'm usually informing him of our day and showing him pictures and videos. T...

My husband is in the military and we have moved every 1-3 years for 11 years together. We are in the midst of our 6th military move now and we will live at our next duty station for 3 years. That means that I have had to make adult friends at 5 different duty stations already and I'm about to do it again at a 6th. I have found that my needs for friends has varied as our family has grown and as I have grown. When we first got married and didn't have kids, I wanted friends who were out doing things at night. I liked a fun party and going out. I wanted people to do things with-- dinner parties, outings, even day to day errands. It was just nice hanging out, texting, drinking, and talking about books and hobbies. At our second duty station with one child, I wanted people to meet up with. I kept a Pack'n'Play in my Jeep and I would go to dinner parties, put the baby down to nap in the master bedroom. I liked day trips, playdates, barbecues, farmer's markets on the we...

There have been so many positive changes in my surrounding the past couple weeks and months. We've had new families move in on our street. My kids have so many people their age to play with outside. I made good friends with my neighbors and they are real and genuine people that I can feel a deep connection with-- the type of people that you can see being friends with for a long, long time. I love their whole family and they welcome my entire family with open arms. It's amazing. I love the feel of our street right now. It's the type of place you want to lean back and enjoy, let some roots grow. I have spent the past couple weeks and months saying, "What if it had been like this the whole time we lived here?" For just about the first time since we got here, my physical health hasn't been a problem. I started this duty station with an incredibly bad case of mastitis, swooped into a horrible pregnancy that almost killed me and my daughter, and post-partum co...

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...

"[Women] are taught from their infancy upwards that it is a wrong, ill-tempered, and a misunderstanding of 'woman's mission' (with a great M) if they do not allow themselves willingly to be interrupted at all hours." -Florence Nightingale, from Cassandra In my 11 years of being a stay-at-home spouse, I have received no awards or respect for my job. That's usually when people laugh at me-- when I say job. "Your job ? You stay home all day. With kids. " People have said that to my face. And they mean it. From a young age, I wanted a big family. I mean, a lot of kids. I honestly wanted 10 kids. I still want 10 kids, but I lost my uterus after birthing baby #5 so we are not having anymore. I know there are other ways to have children and we haven't ruled them out, but my body is officially out of commission. I also knew that I wanted to have my kids young. I wanted to start having a big family when I was young-- a newlywed. Not just to g...