Kimber's Five

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, ...

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...

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...

A thought that keeps bouncing around in my mind lately is how to accept my present circumstances. I feel like I'm chaffing under the yoke of being a military spouse. There are so many aspects of this life that, after 11 years, I am very tired of dealing with. 1. I'm tired of trying to make friends. 2. I'm very tired of meeting great friends just as I'm getting ready to PCS or when they are about to PCS or when they are about to deploy. I want my friendships to last and line up. 3. I'm tired of feeling like my life is on hold. 4. I'm tired of people telling me my life is not on hold and that I just need to make the most of it. 5. I'm tired of having the mentality that I'm only going to live somewhere for 3 years, max, and so when I start reaching the end of that time, I start passing up opportunities or letting my roots grow any deeper because I know I'm about to move from there again. 6. I'm tired of bumping into people that want to...

I follow a lot of mommy blogs, mommy Instagrams, and mommy Facebook pages. I love getting tips on big family travel, mommy fashion, easy recipes, activities for busy families. I love blogs on home décor, especially if it is ran by a mom who can marry function with fashion. I love photography blogs that talk about techniques or who capture the every day in a simplistic and beautiful way-- a different way to look at things that I see day in and day out. A common theme that I see creeping up more and more is accusations of "Facebooking"-- only showing the good, the fake and staged moments, the ideal that even the moms behind the blogs don't live. "Instead of a beautiful, clean room, why don't you show what it looks like after your kids have been playing in it for an afternoon?" "Instead of all the staged photos of your kids, why don't you show what a day with them is really like?" "Why are all these ads on here? This isn't even y...

In my 11 years of marriage, we have moved 5 times and we are a few short months away from moving for a 6th time. The longest we have lived somewhere is just shy of 3 years. Our family has grown from just me and my husband to what we have now-- 5 children, a dog, and a cat. As a woman, a military spouse, and a mother, making friends has been difficult. There are a lot of obstacles to overcome when it comes to making friends. In my years of trying to connect at my husband's duty stations, I have felt that this particular hardship of the military lifestyle is treated as a women's issue.  I say this because the spouse groups are set up to support the female, stay-at-home spouses. The meetings are held during a weekday morning, often include some sort of childcare, and generally are held with coffee and a craft. The spouse groups attached to commands will also do things like bake for the command during weeks with long hours or host Ladies' Nights Out. As our family ...