intentional weight loss during pregnancy

Here is my follow-up post on my partial molar pregnancy. All in all, I had the best possible outcome with a molar pregnancy: no complications and my numbers went down quickly.

Things Ive heard a lot of throughout this whole process:

• "At least it happened early in the pregnancy."
• "At least you have 3 healthy boys to focus on."
• "You can try again soon."
• "Im sure those complications wont happen to you; dont worry about it."
• "My friend who miscarried just gave birth to a beautiful baby."

Sometimes it felt like as soon as I talked about the molar pregnancy or answered questions about what a molar pregnancy is, people would rush to assure me that it was all going to be fine or not to worry about it or that we will get pregnant soon. While talking with my doctor, he told me that the chances of me having the more serious complications of a partial molar pregnancy (read "Molar pregnancy") were very low because of how quickly my numbers went to negative, so I also felt that my chances of relapsing were slim to none. Honestly, I dont know what I wanted people to say. And I know that people were just trying to let me know that they love me and want the best for me, that they worry about me and didnt want me to have to go through anything more. I knew that they were trying to give me hope. I guess I liked it best when someone would just say, "Oh, man, Im sorry you are going through this. Ill be praying things keep getting better for you." The comments of "youll get pregnant again soon" felt like people wanted me to stop grieving over the loss of this pregnancy, this baby, and to move on. Sometimes I just felt down about the whole situation and didnt know what I wanted to hear. Whatever people say though, Im still always happier when someone says something to me about it instead of ignoring it. Grief is hard to manage and often made me feel like I was pushing people away.

I had a hard time moving on from this pregnancy loss. We had gone through an unexpected pregnancy loss before (this partial molar pregnancy was my 4th pregnancy; I miscarried our 1st pregnancy as well) and it was hard then. On one hand, having my 3 beautiful boys was an absolute blessing. They did keep me busy and they did remind me of the beauty in life, the fun in the everyday. They relaxed me and kept my hands busy. On the other hand, it was hard to find time to grieve. I didnt feel that I had time to throw myself into the emotions I was feeling and that sometimes I had to push them to the side. Maybe that is why the grieving process took longer. I do also think that the uncertainty of the next couple years played a big role as well (my husband is in the Navy, read "Asthma, STA-21, commissioning, and PCSing-- yikes!"). I kept thinking, "Oh, this was perfect timing to have a baby. What if I get pregnant before he has to leave? What if I get pregnant and we are moving during my due date? What if I dont like my next OBGyn?"

It took me awhile to realize all the pressure I was putting on myself over something that I couldnt change. It was ridiculous. I didnt like hearing from people, "You need to give yourself time to heal," when I told them about this wait period with the blood draws, but I realized I do. I wouldnt be happy if we rushed into the next pregnancy and miscarried. During my mono/di twin pregnancy (read "Identical or fraternal [revised]"), one of my big rules, because it was high risk, was, if I went into premature labor, would I regret an activity/food/drink/etc? If the answer was yes, I didnt do the activity, like take the walk or finish the chore list or eat the cold cuts for lunch. (I hate the no cold cuts during pregnancy rule. Since when is that a thing??) The risk had to outweigh the benefit. For this partial molar pregnancy, the risk of rushing things did not outweigh the benefit. Our timeline of moving and my husbands Navy schedule will sort itself out. And, in all honesty, this timing of our partial molar pregnancy wasnt exactly perfect either. We are moving across state lines in less than a week and my due date for the partial molar pregnancy was September 9th. I would either be super pregnant right now, stressing about all the things that needed to get done for our move, or nursing a newborn, since Ive never made it to my due date, even with our singleton.

The thing that has been getting me down as we get ready to move is never going to my OBGyn again. When we got pregnant this last time, I was very excited that when all was said and done, I would have given birth to 3 kids in the same state, a big feat for a Navy family. I would have also used the same OBGyn for 2 pregnancies. I liked the idea of having the same doctors and saying, "Oh, last time Doctor P was just wonderful; Im so glad he could deliver us this time as well." The only consistency in my history with OBGyns I have is having a pregnancy and a miscarriage at the same practice. My first pregnancy (miscarriage) and my second pregnancy (singleton) was at the same OBGyn practice; my third pregnancy (mono/di twins) and my fourth pregnancy (miscarriage/partial molar) was at the same OBGyn.

Im also dreading passing the due date. My husband says to not worry about it and let it go. I know he means well and I know this whole thing has been hard on him as well (he was sooo worried about me when we got the diagnosis). I just dont seem to be able to. I cant believe how much time has passed. From our first questionable ultrasound at the end of January to now, August. My positive pregnancy test was at the end of 2012-- time is marching forward. It is much easier said than done to not focus on the passage of time. My friends who were pregnant at the same time as me are all giving birth to their babies. Other friends have announced their pregnancies. My heart fills with joy for them; I know many of them have also struggled with infertility, pregnancy loss, and complicated or high risk pregnancies. Im not begrudging any of them. Just seeing their pregnancies come to fruition reminds me of where I "should be" in my pregnancy-- definitely something I have struggled to let go of. There are also smaller things, like commercials on TV that made us laugh when I was pregnant, "Oh, thats going to be us," or whatever we said. Now I see them and am reminded of how excited I was about the pregnancy and how excited our oldest was to be a big brother again.

This update has taken me awhile to write because the feelings were so raw for so long. Now Im honestly at a much better spot. Occasionally my heartstrings are pulled, like with the approaching due date, but the constant longing when I see a pregnant belly has died down. I remember the first couple blood draw appointments, taken at my OBGyn office, were really hard. I would sit in the waiting room and try not to look at the pregnant women checking in or struggling to lower themselves in those waiting room chairs (pregnant bellies are so cumbersome). I remember this one gal who was standing in line with her hand resting on her tummy; I thought the baby was kicking and she was feeling the little movements. I miss feeling that, in spite of how miserable carrying a pregnancy actually was for me. Now I dont feel my cheeks flush when confronted with a pregnant belly and I dont automatically calculate the weeks I "should be" when I look at my calendar. I dont feel on the verge of tears when our oldest asks when we are going to have another baby or tells me how much he wants a little sister; I can easily talk to him and answer his questions.

So now Im cleared to TTC, as many online forums call it (Try To Conceive). Whenever we get pregnant again, I will have close monitoring during the first trimester to make sure that Im not carrying another molar pregnancy. The molar pregnancy is behind us, but, as every woman who has experienced pregnancy loss in one form or another, it will never be forgotten. Two miscarriages, one of them being a molar pregnancy, has definitely made my husband and I nervous when it comes to certainty in our positive pregnancy tests. No, we are not pregnant now, but we recently discussed our feelings going forward. I was surprised to find that both he and I had the same feelings toward our next pregnancy. We are excited to be able to try again, though nervous. Nervous to experience all of this again, nervous at the possibility of miscarrying, nervous at the uncertainty of pregnancy and the heartbreak of loss. I think he feels much more like he doesnt want to get his hopes up whenever we find out we are pregnant again. I feel much more like I dont want to lose another baby. Its funny how men and women view things so differently. Ive learned through this whole thing that sometimes he words things differently than I would and that he views things differently than I do; however, his love is deep and strong and he felt the loss as well. He is my best friend and Im thankful for him everyday.

Heres to hoping!

My other blog posts on my molar pregnancy:

"Miscarriage"

"Molar pregnancy"

"The bake queen"

"3 weeks, 3 months"

"Time wont let me go"

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weight loss during pregnancy is it safe

"Live a little, be a gypsy get around.
Get your feet up off the ground.
Live a little, get around."
-Paul McCartney, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

We are less than a week away from PCSing from North Carolina to South Carolina. I dont know why this move out of all the other moves weve done is so dang stressful. Ive moved from the west coast to the Northeast by myself as a newlywed. Ive moved from the Northeast to Hawaii by myself with a newborn. I even signed our lease for our apartment here in North Carolina by myself with a toddler and a power of attorney. And here we are, three years later moving one state down with my husband to help on both ends and Im having an absolute panic attack.

Every time we are about to move, I envision it going like the last scene in Thirteen Going on Thirty with Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo.

Image courtesy of The Blue Craftsman

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They are adorable. The pink house, the couch in the lawn, cuddling on it and laughing... Ive never had the movers put my couch on the lawn and give us a moment on it to cuddle and laugh. Even if they did, I would probably be too stressed out about how they were packing our artwork to take advantage of the movie moment anyways.

Recently Chopped aired an episode where the contestants had to create dishes using "wasted" ingredients (view episode at FoodNetwork.com). I feel like that has been our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for the past couple weeks, with a minor interlude when all both our familys came to town for my husbands commissioning. Last night for dinner we had frozen blueberry waffles, a cold tomato salad, and pimento scrambled eggs. We discovered 32 eggs in our garage refrigerator and so tonight we are either having a frittata or omelets, probably with the same pimento, yellow pepper, onion, and tomato filling. Im giving the kids Greek yogurt with nearly all their meals (how did we acquire so much Greek yogurt???). Thankfully we are driving to South Carolina so all our pantry ingredients can be transported in our car instead of thrown out or given away like when we moved from Hawaii. Re-buying all your oils and vinegars is annoying and it feels absolutely wasteful throwing out all your cleaning products and pantry items.

Oh, moving. You are just messing with my head. Our house here in North Carolina was perfect for the kids, considering it is a ranch-style home with a playroom and fenced in backyard. The storage space here was horrible. I feel like our things are shoved in musty closets or jumbled in bins. I keep thinking, "Do I want this room packed this way?" Im so worried we will have small boxes of books and other things from every room. I dont want to get overly OCD, but I want all my books packed together so I can figure out what I want to do with them on the other end. Ive never lived in a home laid out like this where Ive had to put bookcases in every corner of every room. Aside from books, we have often joked about how weve taken advantage of our vertical storage; we now need to have everything on the upper shelves and on top of cabinets taken down to easily be within reach of the movers-- all the coffee cups and rarely used kitchen appliances. We need to have everything that cant be lifted off the walls taken down for the movers (the television, artwork). And have I mentioned we have toddler twins and a five-year old in the mix? They are fascinated with absolutely everything weve taken down.

The to-do list feels like it is never ending, especially when considering all the things we need to do in one day before we turn the keys back over (cleaning the house, carpet cleaning, etc). I know that it isnt. I know we will get it done. I know that we will get through this week and it wont be as bad as Im thinking in my head.

Right now I have bags of our pantry items lining the wall in our family room, a gated area we dont let our toddlers into unsupervised. I have winter jackets hanging in door ways as I sort through long forgotten closets. Our playroom is absolutely trashed, between me combing through toys we no longer need and our toddlers entertaining themselves while I work. Our master bedroom is piled with laundry, to-do lists, and items weve stashed away out of the toddlers reach for one reason or another. I feel like Im constantly stepping over a pile or telling the boys to stop touching something.

I think a lot of things are adding to my stress level, things I need to let go of. I feel like weve had a break from military life these last three years due to the STA-21 program (read "STA-21 Officers Program"). Im nervous about heading back into that with three kids, especially now that weve decided to go career Navy. This has felt like a glimpse into civilian life and it is nice. Im slightly envious of my friends who are settling into these houses that they plan on staying in until their children are grown, who are picking neighborhoods based on school districts all the way up to high school, when currently their oldest is four-years old. It tugs at my heart to see my oldest saying good-bye to friends that he has come to love dearly (read this recent article by Military Spouse Magazine, "Lessons About Saying Good-bye from a Five-Year Old Military Child"). I dont want to say good-bye. I dont want to leave this area. I love my friends. I love this area. I could see us here. I could see my kids grow up here.

But it is time. It is time to say close this chapter. It is time to face the mess in my house and check off my to-do list. It is time to start looking into kids programs in our new area in South Carolina. It is time to start posting in Navy wife forums asking if anyone else will live near us. It is time to spread new roots, to make new friends, to let our friends here in North Carolina know how much we have loved them and our friendships with them. It is time to start the cycle all over again of "Making friends," like the blog I posted in September of 2011. This is a hard thing to do every few years as a military family. A friend asked me at lunch this past week if it is easier now since Ive done it so many times before. The answer is no. It is hard to open your heart at each duty station and let people in. It is hard to connect and love someone and say good-bye. Im determined to embrace each duty station with open arms, knowing there is eventually an end, either with us moving away or our military friends moving away. It is something that I will probably always struggle with because sometimes it feels exhausting (read, "Making the best"). Even with the challenges, right now I love this life. I love living new places. I love settling into a new home and redecorating. I love having a reason to go through all our boxes every couple years and constantly being reminded of our treasures. Who else has a reason to open keepsake boxes every one to three years? I love finding my engagement ring box, baby books, and mementos of our good times. I love the people I meet and exploring new areas. I love feeling like this life is an adventure that Im embarking on with my best friend and our beautiful children.

And duties of this life call. Time to get back to packing! Forget Tuesday afternoon, laundry is never ending...

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weight loss during pregnancy is it normal

Organizing my books

 
We have successfully PCSd! This is my first blog post in South Carolina. So far I absolutely love our house. This is the biggest kitchen we have ever had! I cant believe that I actually have unused space in my kitchen cupboards. When I was showing the empty cupboard to my husband, he says, "Well, there is no reason to go out and fill it either." I think he was trying to tell me that I dont need anymore kitchen gadgets. Since Im fairly certain there is a Pampered Chef consultant in my neighborhood, I personally do not think that cupboard will stay empty long. ;)

We moved into a four bedroom house and decided before we got here that we would have a playroom, a guest room, and bunk beds in one bedroom, the boys room. In fact, we were so certain of this decision that we took advantage of a sale at Pottery Barn Kids and bought a bunk bed and a single bed in preparation (military families: be sure to ask for the military discount at Pottery Barn! They apply it on top of sales!). The boys room idea is working great so far. Our oldest loves being on the top bunk. We put a shelf up there for all his special things and his little brothers are not allowed up there (or even on the ladder). The rule is going well for the time being.

Enough about the house. How was PCSing with three kids, including 2-year old twins?

This was actually an awesome move. I am so glad this was our first move with three kids. My husband was home on both ends; during our past moves he would only be home for the pack out and usually not both days of the pack out. We had three days of pack out this time and we had a direct move! Our HHGs were loaded onto a truck in North Carolina and the lead packer drove the same truck down to South Carolina and unloaded our HHGs there. The lead packer was excellent. We told them which of our high value items we wanted to watch him pack; we only told him once and he came to get me to say he was about to pack them up. Weve had barely anything to claim. The crew that unloaded our HHGs in South Carolina was very nice. I tend to be surprised at how much furniture they are taking off the truck, "Where would you like this bookcase, maam?" "Omigosh... I totally forgot about that bookcase... We are going to have to rearrange all the furniture in this room..." Instead of the usual barely concealed eye rolling that Ive received from moving crews in the past, these guys would say, "Sounds good. Tell us where you want it." They didnt rush me to make up my mind about where I wanted furniture and they unloaded our goods in a timely manner. I was very impressed with how quickly they unloaded our HHGs. When we moved from Hawaii to North Carolina with far less things (we only had one child then moved into a two-bedroom apartment), the movers took well into the night to unload our things, despite my attempts to get them to hurry along the process. But there were a lot of problems with that move.


This was our first time using move.mil. I really hated filling out all the move information online. I did not understand why I had to go through the whole process on move.mil only to then give all the same information to our Transportation Office over the phone and then again to a move coordinator. We were also in a remote location in North Carolina; our closest Transportation Office was about an hour away. I really wanted to just go into an office and get the whole thing over with-- no more trying to get a hold of someone just to get a small question answered. I really felt like I was the only one who cared about getting the ball rolling on our move; the gal I spoke with at the Transportation Office was exceedingly disagreeable. However, once everything was squared away, we were assigned a move representative who was fabulous. I mean, absolutely wonderful to work with. It was so nice having a phone number and extension for one person who I could call whenever I had a question. She got back to me in a timely manner and if she didnt have the answer right away, she would call me back the same day with the answer. I loved that. The only ridiculous aspect of having a move coordinator is when there were discrepancies, like she had the wrong move date in our paperwork for some reason. When I told her the correct move date, she had to call the local contracted moving company to verify the move date that I had given her and then call me back to tell me she sent me an email verifying the correct date. It felt like a bit of a production. Whenever I wanted to complain about it though I realized she was the one doing the verifying and not me-- which I liked.

With three children-- a five-year old and two-year old twins-- we decided that we wanted to move to a hotel the first day of the pack out, not even deal with attempting to somewhat baby proof a house rapidly filling with boxes. Even better, local friends of ours volunteered to take our oldest son for most of our pack out. They picked him up the second day of our pack out and kept him at their house until the day we left North Carolina, a total of three days. We found a Hyatt Place that accepted dogs since we also had our small dog Louis with us. Originally we had reserved a 2 bedroom suite at the Residence Inn, but our move date was bumped up by a week and there was a price jump between the two weeks that was far more than we wanted to pay per night. So we stayed at the Hyatt Place, which is basically like a really large hotel room. There is a half partition between the 2 queen beds and the couch area. The space was comfortable once our oldest went to stay with his friends. That first night when all five us and the dog slept in there we were feeling awfully cramped. My husband slept on the couch that night and I slept in a queen bed with our oldest while the two toddlers shared the other queen bed. Without a five-year old bouncing around in the room touching everything ("Whats this little fridge for? Can I drink this? Why is the television like that? What does this button do? Louis, fetch, boy! Fetch! Lets jump from bed to bed!"), I easily entertained the two-year olds with the Duplo blocks I had brought with us and the Llama Llama stories. I also was able to get them to nap without their older brother keeping them up. I originally questioned whether I wanted him staying so long away from us during the move time-- like I wanted the whole family together-- but in the end I was extremely grateful that they had volunteered. It really did make things easier.

During the pack out days, we dropped the kids off at drop-in childcare. We kept them there from about 9 am to 2 pm each day of the pack out. The last day of the pack out, when our stuff was gone and we were starting to get the house prepped to hand the keys over, we dropped them off again for an hour and a half in the evening. It is amazing what you can get done in an hour and a half without two toddlers clinging to your legs. I picked them up in the afternoon and went back to the hotel room with them to attempt to get them to nap, or at least to enforce a quiet time. My husband was in charge of the pack out, watching the movers pack our things and keeping track of what was put in the parts box. I picked up lunch for each of the three days. The first day we had picked up a sandwich platter from Costco along with a fruit bowl. The second day we served the leftover sandwich platter and my husband and I had take out since there wasnt enough for us too. The third day we picked up one of those family meals from KFC that has a big bucket of chicken. We made sure to have bottles of water every day for the movers.

The North Carolina end of the move went smoothly. We had lots of help from friends and knew where restaurants were and what resources we had, like the drop-in childcare. The South Carolina end was tricky. Our kids were with us from start to finish. The third day of our pack out was on a Friday. Saturday we had our house cleaned and did the final walk through, turning over the keys. Sunday we drove to South Carolina. Monday morning we got the keys to our new place and had our HHGs delivered (Im telling you, direct moves are awesome!). The kids were bouncing off the walls the entire time we were in the housing office. My husband and I were really worried how it would go when our HHGs were delivered since we had nowhere for them to nap and werent sure how they would behave. Surprisingly, they did great. The movers were friendly and let me know when they were about to bring in something big and heavy. We also were able to quickly get outside toys off the truck which kept them very entertained in the driveway. Late in the afternoon we found both packnplays and set them up in one of the bathrooms for a nap. The movers were quiet outside the bathroom door and we were able to get them to take a power nap.

We have friends who are also living in South Carolina. They brought us over a platter of enchiladas and a delicious bunt cake the day our HHGs were delivered. My husband and I decided to eat it on Tuesday night since we had errands to run Monday after the movers left. We got a quick bite to eat Monday evening and then drove the boys to Costco at the fussiest time of day to do a "quick trip." Again, they did surprisingly well. We were expecting full on temper tantrums the whole time, but I think everything was so new and exciting that they were too distracted to misbehave. We did get in and out of there as fast as we could though! Tuesday we got to the house and set up the boys room right away. I had brought all the sheets for our beds with us so we wouldnt have problems finding the sheets in South Carolina and also so I wouldnt have to wash them before putting them on the bed. Once there room was set up, my husband got to work in the garage and I got to work in the house. It was great smelling those enchiladas baking in our oven that night for dinner! We were so happy to be checked out of our hotel and finally be home, even if home was a house full of boxes! All in all, we spent six days in a hotel, four days in North Carolina and two days in South Carolina.

Our oldest sleeping through our HHG delivery

It took us eight days to get our house out of boxes. Eight days of waking up and starting before 7 am and finishing around 2 am. I know where the Costco, Sams Club, and Target is here. Ive been to Target many times already. My husband has worked tirelessly to get our garage organized. I think that was a bigger project than getting the house together. We spent many evenings and mealtimes hanging pictures, times when the boys were either strapped in their high chairs or in their room in bed. With kids, you unpack the house by order of priority: the boys room so they can sleep in a baby-proofed space, their playroom so they have somewhere safe to play, the kitchen so you can cook their meals, the bathrooms so the family can get ready for the day, the closets, the laundry room, and the living room. Next comes the guest room. The office barely makes it on the list and has become a catch-all for the random box or two we still need to unpack and the things we need to organize (why on earth do I have so much art supplies?!). The last couple things we have to do are small: we are waiting on the couch we ordered to be delivered, Im getting some things framed for our living room, and Im painting canvases for the boys room. These things will eventually get done and Im not worried about them. Our office may never get done. That is a project Im definitely putting off for some long, dreary day this winter. :)

While there were many factors that got us unpacked so quickly this time, I always like to give myself a deadline of when I will get the house unpacked. Im worried that if I dont, my whole house will end up like our office, an unfinished project with random bits and pieces stacked in corners. I dont want to live in a house, even for a short amount of time, that doesnt feel like home. Ive written before about how up in the air our schedule is here (read "Asthma, STA-21, commissioning, and PCSing-- yikes!"). We could be in South Carolina anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, though we shouldnt be here much longer than that. On top of wanting our current house to feel like home, my husband and I agree that we dont want to start having "garage boxes," as we call them. When the movers are unloading the truck, you tend to give them an area to put boxes you are unsure of where they go, like if a box is marked storage or whatever, you tell them, "Oh, just put that in the garage. Well go through it later." But the later never comes and the next time you move, you have these random garage boxes that never got opened. During our in-town moves in North Carolina (read "Across town move"), we ended up with a couple garage boxes. I opened them all up before we PCSd to South Carolina and was surprised at what I found. One of them was a donate box, another full of puzzles and games that Id been looking for. I really would like to put off accumulating garage boxes for as long as possible! Im sure it is inevitable we will have some with such a large family, but we are fighting the uphill battle for as long as we can.

I plan on writing a blog post about moving with our five-year old. The two-year olds have done great. They have had the expected amount of tantrums from their routines being totally thrown off and their parents completely occupied with unpacking the house. They have enjoyed tasks like shoving the moving paper into empty boxes. They have really enjoyed climbing in empty boxes and pretending they are racecars. Our oldest misses North Carolina a lot. He misses his friends and is feeling unsure about the new place. We are trying to set up familiar routines here to help him feel a little more in control here. I have absolutely loved our new community here. Our neighbors are wonderful. Not only have they watched our boys when I needed childcare in a bind, but weve also already had two playdates in the short 12 days that weve been here. One of our neighbors has even been picking our oldest up when they go for family walks in the evening. I was so worried about making friends when we moved here because of the challenge I had doing so at our last duty station (read "Making friends"). This moving experience has really made me fall in love with the military community all over again; my husband and I have felt so incredibly blessed by our neighbors here.

Now, I would attach some of the good pictures that I took with our Sony Cybershot... but all the cables are still packed in the office boxes...

Things that were extremely helpful during this move:

-Our move notebook (read "Write it all down")

-A clipboard with a pad of paper, like the Greenroom recycled clipboard from Target

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how to weight loss during pregnancy

 

This is our third PCS together. There were a lot of reasons why this past move went as well as it did, many of which you already know if you read my last blog post, "PCS to South Carolina." Here are the major reasons as to why this was such a good move:

• My husband was home on both ends and did not have to go into work much. In North Carolina he was working with the ROTC after he graduated college; he took 10 days of house hunting leave during our PCS. Now in South Carolina he is on hold before he actually starts power school. We did not have to deal with a boat schedule or him being underway while I set up the move. That was a nice change (read "STA-21 Officers Program").
• Since we moved one state down (North Carolina to South Carolina), we did not have to ship any vehicles and try to figure out how we were going to negotiate having one car for an extended period of time.
• Along the same vein, we also did not have to deal with getting specific power of attorneys to ship vehicles, do the pack out, accept HHG shipment, yadda yadda yadda... Plus I always have the durable unlimited power of attorney which has made our life much easier.
• We had baby-sitters and friends to help when we moved from North Carolina. We even knew someone in South Carolina who brought us dinner when our HHGs were delivered.
• We were able to load up our car with our pantry ingredients and a cooler with some of our refrigerator ingredients. We did not have to deal with empty cupboards for a week or two before making the Worlds Most Expensive Costco Trip like we have had to on every other move.
• We were able to do a direct move. Our pack out dates were a Wednesday and a Thursday. They loaded our HHGs onto the truck in North Carolina on Friday and they were delivered at our address in South Carolina an hour after we got the keys to our house on Monday.

Tools for setting up your HHG move

With all that said, here are the things that I found extremely helpful when setting up our HHG move:

• Our move notebook was awesome! I wrote a blog post about what is in our move notebook called, "Write it all down." Since my husband was home, I liked that we were able to keep all our information straight between what he was working on and what I was working on. He knew where to look for important phone numbers and I knew where to look to get a copy of our orders. When we actually moved, I did carry our file organizer with us instead of putting our passports and birth certificates, etc, in the move notebook since we just drove one state down. However, during our move from Hawaii to North Carolina, I would have put those documents in my move notebook and not had to carry the cumbersome file organizer.
• Along with the move notebook, I kept a Greenroom Recycled Clipboard from Target handy. This is where I kept notes when I talked to housing and where my husband and I wrote our pre-pack out to-do lists. I tore off sheets of information I needed to keep and put those in the move notebook, but for general notes, I liked having the clipboard. It was also much easier to carry this clipboard with me when waiting for a return phone call from housing than lugging the entire move notebook to our sons park and rec class.

First Day Bag

Once we actually got the keys to our new house in South Carolina, our first day bag was awesome. This is the first time that I did a first day bag; every other move I kicked myself when I realized I didnt have toilet paper or soap or some other necessity, impatiently waiting for lunch break so I could run to Target. So a huge thank you to my husband for reminding me to pack a first day bag. I know some people do a first day box that gets packed with their HHGs and is clearly marked FIRST DAY BOX, that way they have those supplies in their new house. We just put the first day bag in our vehicle and drove it down with us. Here is what I put inside:

• A pack of toilet paper
• Hand soap-- put in 1 or 2 soap dispensers
• Small size of dish soap
• Roll of paper towels
• White cleaning rag
• Clorox wipes
• Hand sanitizer
• Ziploc bag of dishwasher detergent
• Ziploc bag of Tide Pods for laundry
• Several plastic Target bags
• Box of Ziploc bags, quart size
• If you have young kids: Extra baby wipes
• If you have young kids: A couple of diapers
•  If you have room: a couple of hand towels

This was to get us through the first day or two before we started unpacking our bathroom boxes and to tide us over in case of laundry emergency with kids (plastic bag for dirty clothes, laundry pods for loads that need to get washed at the hotel or after our washer and dryer got hooked up). I only packed one hand soap dispenser and I really wish that I had put in at least two. We ended up using the dish soap in the kitchen and putting the hand soap in the bathroom. The Clorox wipes were a stroke of genius. I used those a lot the first couple days. I dont know about you, but I like to clean my new house before using the amenities. I felt much more at home with this Mary Poppins-esque bag at my disposal. The paper towels worked fine, though I do wish that I had thrown in a hand towel or two for the bathroom and the kitchen.

 Making unpacking easier

I think a lot of people make unpacking a harder process than it needs to be. Sometimes it is really overwhelming opening up a box to find it full of random mail from your old house, DVDs that you dont have room for, blankets you havent unpacked the bin for, and tchotchkes you had sitting around your old living room. Even harder (for me): figuring out how to set up your new kitchen. There you are, standing in a kitchen with empty cupboards, stacked high with boxes marked kitchen, and you dont know where to begin. Where to put the cooking spoons? Or the silverware? Or the spices? And as you unpack boxes, good Lord, where am I going to put this small kitchen appliance that I had totally forgotten about?

In all honesty, one of the most stressful things for me about unpacking our house is when my husband is home to help. We have totally different styles. He wants to get everything out of boxes and see everything that needs to go in a room, like the kitchen, before putting anything away. To me, this is a wildly unrealistic way to unpack because 1. we have kids who will break everything we leave sitting around and 2. if we unpacked all our HHG before putting them away, we would have so much clutter for weeks that I would probably lose my mind. My style of unpacking is much more "me do it." I can figure it out; I just want to get it done. This is why I always have my grandmother move with me because she is the same way. She works in one room; I work in another. I move boxes for her; she asks if I use something often, and we just unpack and file everything away one box at a time. This move, my husband and I talked about things before our HHGs were delivered and it actually went perfectly-- so perfectly that I dont know what Ill do if I have to move without him next time! He was such a huge help and totally organized our garage while helping me in the house; I dont know how he got everything done that he did-- plus he hung everything in our house beautifully. Sometimes combining two different styles is just what you need to get a house unpacked quickly and efficiently. :)

Here are my tips on unpacking your house:

• Communicate. Whether you are unpacking your house with your husband or a relative who came to help, figure out who is unpacking what, even if it is room by room. If it is your house and you have someone helping you, tell them what you need help with and give them the freedom to do it. Give them a specific job. "Would you mind organizing this hall cupboard? I need the medicine up high, out of the reach of the kids, but everything else is up to you. I do like things grouped together, like hand towels, or childrens medicine." When unpacking with your spouse, figure out what your plan of action is. "I plan on doing the closets next; what about you?" If you really want something done a certain way, tell your spouse so there isnt conflict later, especially if it is one of "your" areas of the house. For instance, my husband spends a lot of time working in the garage and so he set it up how he wanted to. He asked if there was anything special I wanted in the garage and I told him I wanted the kids toys easily accessible.
• Prioritize. Unpack your house by order of priority. Since we have small kids, we needed their room unpacked so they could sleep safely each night-- no boxes stacked in the corner or loose screws laying about. We pulled the boxes out of their playroom and unpacked enough of their toys that they had a safe place to play while we unpacked the rest of the house. I then unpacked enough of their bathroom that we could do baths at night. The kitchen is a big priority because that is where we cook our meals. Laundry room is a huge priority so I can start washing sheets and clothes. I got those areas squared away before doing things like my closet. I wanted my closet unpacked so I could get ready quicker, and then I went back and finished things like the bathrooms, before going to lower priority things like finishing the playroom and unpacking and organizing my books. With small children, things like hanging pictures becomes a big priority once you have unpacked the majority of the pictures because they become a hazard stacked in a corner of the room.
• Organize. This doesnt mean folding all of your towels just so as you put them away or putting every dish in the cupboard exactly how you want it the first time. As you unpack, you will have those "oh, crap" moments of you-forgot-just-how-many-towels-you-own or when-on-earth-did-I-get-so-many-small-kitchen-appliances or where-the-Hades-am-I-going-to-store-my-canned-goods. You will be shifting things as you unpack. However, plan. Eyeball your house. Where do you want to keep your household linens? Or your medications? Or your shoes? Figure out rough ideas of homes for these things and congregate items as you go. Where is a safe place (safe meaning out of the reach of toddlers) to put your trinkets as you unpack them? Right now I have a shelf in the garage with our decorative vases, many of which will eventually find their permanent places inside the home-- just havent gotten to it yet. When you unpack those random boxes, it wont be so stressful if you know where you are planning on keeping extra blankets or your office files.
• Re-purpose. As the movers brought in our furniture, they would ask me where I wanted large furniture items that-- I kid you not-- I had completely forgotten about. I had to shift the room to accommodate those pieces. Some things ended up where they are because that was the only place I had room to put them. Our night stand is now in my closet. Just because a piece of furniture was an end table or your toy organizer at your last house doesnt mean that it cant become your new nightstand or a bookcase in your living room at your new house. Look at your furniture with a new eye as it gets unpacked. Would that work as a desk in your office? Or could that now be the dresser in your kids room? And wouldnt that be just the thing to organize your playroom? Use your storage bins creatively. What if you took this bin out of your kitchen and used it instead in your guest room? Or organized all your homeschooling things with it?
• Donate. As we unpack, we keep a sturdy medium size box open at all times marked clearly DONATE and another marked TRASH. Dont keep what you dont need. Sometimes it is hard to throw things away at your old house because you cant see that house without it-- what would you put in that odd corner if you got rid of that chair or lamp? In your new house, you see that you dont need it. You dont need these toys or these clothes or those books or that desk. Get rid of it. Do it while it is fresh, before you settle in. Designate a corner of your garage or porch as your DONATE pile. Dont move your junk drawer from one house to another. Start your new junk drawer fresh, only putting in it some pens, paper, and a flashlight. Get rid of the rest. I like to think of it as paying it forward. Give these things to someone who wants them or needs them. Give them to a charity. Welcome your family to your new home with some good Karma and a fresh start. The donate box is also especially useful because if I have something that Im really stumped with finding a place for that I rarely use, I donate it.
• Simplify. I know a lot of people wash all their sheets and towels before putting them away after they move, or wash all of their kitchen appliances, dishes, and silverware before putting them away. I wait. Ill fill the dishwasher with our everyday dishes and our everyday silverware, but everything else waits. I wash the kitchen appliances before I use them. I eventually wash all our kitchen gadgets. Weve been in our new home for two weeks and today I pulled all our kitchen gadgets out of their drawers and washed everything, filling up the sink and soaking them in hot, soapy water before washing them all and laying them out to dry over towels on the kitchen counter. This move I packed clean sheets for all the beds with me, eliminating the loads of sheets before making the beds. Ive slowly washed the other sheets these past two weeks. You dont have to do it all right away when your house is in boxes! Clean as you go. Dont make it more stressful.

Moving with young children

We have three boys: a five-year old and two-year old twins. I really worried about moving with all three of them. I stressed over whether I should go buy plastic bins to organize their toys, put all the Matchbox cars in one, all the action figures in another, etc. I agonized over what toys I should bring for them to the hotel and our drive, what movies, what games. I stressed about how to make this transition easier for them. In the end, we packed our Jeep so tight that we werent able to get the train table out once we checked into our hotel (yes, I planned on bringing the whole dang train table into the hotel room with us) and I forgot to pack any DVDs at all before our HHGs were packed up. What worked best for them was keeping naptime the same and having fun, individual activities, like sticker books and magnetic drawing boards. I did bring some of their favorite books with us to the hotel so that we could all read together and they liked the time in Mommy and Daddys lap before bed and we had a bag of Duplos with us. All three of the boys played with those in the hotel and in our new house before their toys started coming off the truck. The biggest thing to remember is that the kids feed off of your energy. The more stressed you are, the more stressed they are. I had to remind myself often that it will all come together, it will all work out. There were many times during unpacking that I changed tactics to include the kids, "Hey, can you put all the paper in this box? Can you put the toys in the bin?" or that I took fun breaks, like hooking up the sprinkler and sitting outside with them. The best times, I found, to get real work done were during mealtime (strapped in their highchairs), naptime, and bedtime. While my husband fed them, I would work on projects I didnt want three small sets of hands involved in; this usually resulted in me eating standing up at random times of the day. Big, time consuming projects that involved both my husband and I, like hanging the pictures in the house, we did first thing in the morning when the boys were still fresh and upbeat.

And if you are PCSing soon, best of luck to you on your upcoming move!
-Kimber

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Picture taken by TwinBug Photography at twinbugphotography@yahoo.com

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 dont need a housekeeper. We really can do it just fine" (my emphasis). Who does the housework around here, if not the housekeeper? Thats right! Me! ;)

Our agreement is basically that we want to let our finances settle from the move, have a chance to adjust our family budget to the new pay (and the student loans that we are going to have to start paying on), and see how we feel about getting a housekeeper then. Our last housekeeper came once every two weeks; we might look into having someone come every two or three weeks, maybe even once a month. Well see.

But more than that has changed: it has gotten easier!

Yes, you heard me right: it has gotten easier!!!!!!!

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for signs of it getting easier-- not just more enjoyable, as I have enjoyed it all-- but easier, where I feel I have things under control and that Im not just way behind the game or playing eternal catch-up. Strangely, going from tidying a three-bedroom two-bathroom house for our housekeeper every two weeks to cleaning a four-bedroom 2.5-bathroom house has been the thing to show me that it has, indeed, gotten easier.

I felt extremely behind taking care of our homes in North Carolina. I felt I was always behind in laundry and always behind in housecleaning. I felt our kitchen got the best of me every night and that dinner was an absolute chore. The housekeeper was much needed. She saved my sanity and gave back some of that time to my kids. My house may have been messy with toys, but it was clean! I felt like I had more time for dinner (though I still had a hard time making that happen with the kids at my feet...) and I could get other things done, like laundry or getting out of the house. My to-do list was that much shorter.

Here in South Carolina our house is much bigger. I would have thought that a bigger house would be more stressful to clean. When we first moved in, I said, "I dont know how Im going to do this!" And then it all fell together. I unpacked our dry-erase calendar (Board Dudes Magnetic Dry-Erase Calendar Tile) and put together a cleaning schedule. Each day I do a really small task and just stay on top of the other stuff (laundry, dishes, getting the kids to put away their toys, husband and I put away our things when done with them)-- really basic things.

Honestly, I think it is easier now because the toddlers are coming up on two and a half years old and our oldest is five years old. They listen better. They play together better. They have more imaginative games and like to push cars or play pretend instead of banging blocks together and stealing toys from their big brother. I can get them all doing an activity and mop the floors or have them fold a load of wash rags from the laundry while I clean the kitchen. If they dont behave or dont have their "listening ears on," as I like to say, then they are sent to their room. If they were being completely naughty, they are sent to their bed and cannot get off of it. If they were only misbehaving in a small way, they can quietly play in their room and can come out when they are ready to participate.

Now that our twins are almost two and a half, we have outlawed whining. We dont take it. No whining following along after me. No whining for more. No whining at your brother. No whining for a toy or because youre bored or because you dont know the word. They can say "please" or "help, please" or "Momma help, please" or any word they can think of instead of whining. I want to hear, "More milk, please" or "No, thank you" or "Foot hurt" or "Cup empty" or "Hungry." Whatever it is, I dont want to hear: "Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom....."

And we are enforcing this. It has been an uphill battle, but we are fighting it. It is worth it. I love when I say, "No whining, sir. You need to use words," and he says, "Cup empty." I love when I send them to their room for whining and say, "You can come out when you are ready to stop whining and use words," and he marches his little self out five minutes later with a big smile on his face, ready to use words. Those small victories are progress. They make up for the times that we put a toddler in his room over and over for whining or when we are putting two toddlers in their room over and over again for whining-- long, endless afternoons.

Between the enforcement of our new no-whining rule and their ability to play, housecleaning is much less of a chore. I can tell the boys that I need ten minutes to finish a task, like sweeping the floors, or cleaning the bathtub. Not saying it always goes perfect, but it is easier.

Here is my plan for cleaning our house:

The overall goal of this method is to clean a little bit each day. The fundamental principle is to pick up as you go. Dont save the mess for a different day or get to it later. If you are in the kitchen and a dirty glass is in the sink, put it in the dishwasher. If you walk through the family room and a toy car is next to the couch, drop it over the baby gate by the playroom. Be the change.

Outside of that, I follow these five simple steps everyday:

1. Clean the kitchen and table everyday
2. Sweep the kitchen as needed, most likely everyday
3. Do the dishes right away-- dont leave them for later!
4. Tidy playroom everyday-- have the boys help clean up their mess
5. Tidy the living spaces

Right now the toddlers are making a much bigger mess than our five-year old is, so were really feeling it isnt fair for him to have to do the bulk of the picking up by himself. We help them all pick up the playroom every night and, if it is really messy, before afternoon nap. Our five-year old is awesome at picking it up. Our two-year olds are getting better and better; they still need to be directed to small tasks, "Clean up the trains," instead of "Clean up the playroom," but they complete each of the tasks in a timely manner. (Consistency, consistency, consistency.)

For the actual housecleaning, it works best if you start with a totally clean house, top to bottom. From there, you break up all the big tasks. I have mine broken down to a 2-week rotation, starting over again after completing week 2.

MONDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Floors: sweep and mop, vacuum

 

TUESDAY
Laundry
Week 1:

Bathrooms: toilets, sinks, mirrors, quick clean of showers/tubs
Week 2:
Bathrooms: toilets, sinks, mirrors, thorough clean of showers/tubs

WEDNESDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Wash towels: kitchen towels, bathroom towels

THURSDAY
Week 1 and 2 (same):
Laundry
Floors: sweep and mop

FRIDAY
Week 1:
Wash bedding: master and childrens
Week 2:
Wash bedding: master and guest (if used)

SATURDAY
Week 1:
Dust and 10-minute clean
Week 2:
Pantry and fridge, 10-minute clean

SUNDAY
Meal plan for the week

 

There are, of course, other things that need to happen when housecleaning, like cleaning the walls or the floorboards. Things that happen once a month or once every couple months, I do on an as-needed basis. I will tackle those tasks, but it will probably be on a random day when the boys are napping and I dont have anywhere to be. I am not scheduling the floorboards! (I hate doing them.)

 

With all of the scheduling that I have done since our twins were born-- look back on my first blog posts-- I have learned that over scheduling can be as big of a detriment as not scheduling. Your day starts feeling trapped or played through before youve even gotten out of bed. Once the boys reached toddlerhood, we threw out our structured schedule (save for bedtime, which is promptly at 8:00 pm), and started letting things naturally happen. Dont get me wrong, we 100% feel that schedule was much needed and we would do it the same way all over again (read my blog post "Light at the end of the schedule"). Im a scheduler and a planner and, as recently pointed out to me, an over-thinker. I like to know what Im getting done each done each day and I like to plan it out. Scheduling, to some level, is just how I roll. So while I have the household chores broken down by what Im doing each day, I have not scheduled when Im doing them. Sometimes I do them as the boys are eating breakfast and contained in highchairs (like the bathrooms). Sometimes I do them during naptime (like mopping or moving laundry).

 

And some things just dont always happen according to plan. To quote Disneys Pirates of the Caribbean, "I like to think of them more as...guidelines." Today I cleaned the house from top to bottom. One week I did two days worth of tasks every other day to take the middle day off. Whatever works. Doing laundry Monday through Thursday with Friday through Sunday off is more of a goal. My mom told me that it never worked for her to take weekends off when we all were young and it hasnt worked for me yet either. Our washer and dryer hum away with at least one load seven days a week. Maybe Ill get down to Monday through Thursday-- wishful thinking, Im sure.

Sundays I take off from housecleaning to relax with my family and do our meal planning for the week. I need to do a whole blog post on meal planning-- which I will. What I will say about meal planning is that it makes dinnertime a whole lot easier each night. Dinner doesnt have to be fancy. Dinner just has to be nummy and nutritious, wholesome, reminiscent of home... your home. Tonight we had leftovers and supplemented those leftovers with a Kashi Steam Meal. Everyone was happy! We used up our leftovers and it was easy for me to make, plus the kids loved it. The meal planning is another way that I take the stress out of my day. I dont have the oh-crap-whats-for-dinner question looming over me everyday at 2 oclock in the afternoon.

 

When my mom recently came to visit and she saw my schedule posted above my washer and dryer in my laundry room, she said I was a domestic goddess. So Im running with it. If I was going to be a goddess, I think I would much rather be a goddess of love or victory, but Ill take what I can get. :)

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5-years old is a fun age. I know our oldest has only been five for a handful of weeks now, but Ive loved every minute of it. Is this what people have meant by it gets easier? (And it only took 5 years! Not including 9 months of pregnancy!)

Dont get me wrong, I absolutely love being a stay-at-home mom. I love spending every day with my kids and helping them through each milestone, kissing every boo-boo, wiping away every tear, scaring away all the monsters, and going on countless backyard adventures. Every momma knows that there are easy stages and hard stages. 5 years old has proven to be one of those stages that feels like a fun adventure, glittered with childhood imagination and peppered with mysteries to solve and experiments to conduct. I love it.

Ds imagination at 5 has just taken off. Hes always been big on costumes and pretend play, but now we have elaborate plots and various "rules." I love when he pipes up from the backseat, "Hey, Momma! Want to hear a story?" Of course I do! His stories are long-winded and sometimes missing a point, but some of them are laugh out loud funny and others are just heartwarming (like the little boy who had two little brothers that he loved more than anything in the whole wide world-- yeah, super cute!). I love when he tries to play Magic School Bus with his 2-year old twin brothers, "No, no! You are Arnold. You have to say... And, Carlos! You have to sit here! Where are you going?" Im supposed to be Ms. Frizzle in the chaos, but it is too cute half the time to intervene.

Even better, 5 seems to be the magical age of explaining and negotiating. No longer do we have conversations like the one I had with one of our 2-year olds the other night, "No green beans, no watermelon. Yes green beans, yes watermelon," holding up samples of said items to reinforce my point. I can tell D things like, "You need to be a gentleman at breakfast. A lot of family came to town to see you. They want to talk to you. Do not use potty words. Tell them the things youve learned about the beach this summer." And guess what? He behaved like a perfect gentleman, even pulling me to the side later to tell me that he did just what I said and "didnt use potty words or anything potty talk except when I had to go poop then I said, Excuse me, I have to go poop." (Still working on etiquette!)

He didnt want to go to his summer day camp because he was going to miss me too much, so we talked about one of our favorite family reads, Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdey (honestly, you should check out all of the Llama books). I asked him what happened when Llama Llama went to school. D says, "He missed his momma and started crying because he wanted to go home." I urged him to go further, "But then what happened? What did his teacher tell him?" D answered quickly, "She said it was okay to miss Momma! That Momma was coming back!" He told me about all the fun things Llama Llama did at school before his momma came to pick him up again. And then I quoted the last pages of the book, "Llama finds out something new. He loves Mama... and school too!" When I dropped him off at summer day camp, he leaned forward to kiss my cheek and whispered to me, "I love Momma and camp too!" Precious.

There, of course, are new things to deal with at 5. He has his little pride. When he fails at something, like making a basket or hitting the ball, and we laugh, he takes it very personally. (Okay, it sounds mean when I write it like that, but it is absolutely adorable when our little 5-year old shakes his little bottom before pulling the bat back and swinging as hard as he can, missing the ball, and spiraling down to the ground. Adorable. You keep a straight face!) He feels left out, especially when we are doing something with his brothers and not him, like their speech therapy sessions. "Why cant I play? Will someone come over to do speech therapy with me?" He wants to be a big boy, just like his dad. "The baby-sitter is here for my brothers, but she is going to big-boy-sit me, not baby-sit." He wants to be the center of attention and a stand-up comedian. "What do you call a snail on a ship? A SNAIL-or! What do you call a dog on a ship? A SNAIL-or! What do you call a baby on a ship? A BABY!" (Okay, still working on etiquette and jokes...) And a 5-year old can take whining to an all new level. He makes our 2-year olds look like amateurs, which, in a way, they are. He can whine for an entire day. I tell him, "Bud, you need to speak up and use your regular voice." He replies, barely audible, "thisismyregularvoice...." I dont know always what sets off the whining. Sometimes he feels hes been slighted, like if I make him give a toy to his brothers or if I say no to making double chocolate chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. I dont like the whining, but, man, sometimes I need to laugh out loud because the level of whining he can reach is just absolutely ridiculous! Surely there is a Preschool Olympics somewhere I could enter him in...

I love that he has interests now besides just loud trucks or stacking blocks. He wants to build towers and cities for his action figures. He wants to get really good at baseball and basketball. He wants to ride his bike without training wheels. He wants to be an "army guy" and a sailor and a firefighter and Superman when he grows up. He wants to help with all my chores and know how to fold the laundry like I do. He wants to bathe himself, brush his own teeth, get himself ready by himself. He wants to walk close to me without holding my hand. He wants to show me how "awesome" his Listening Ears are, as we call them. He wants to know how things work and why things are the way they are. He wants to listen to the whole story and ask questions, read more stories about a topic. He wants to tell me everything he knows and everything he did that day (of course when he wants to tell me, not when I ask). He wants to be the worlds best big brother, the worlds best bike rider, the worlds best seat belt buckler, the worlds best popcorn eater...

There are still challenges. It is hard to balance his interests when Im also chasing twin 2-year olds. It is hard to listen to everything when we are in the midst of a move and I need to take the phone call. But that is just life. Life happens.

I love when parenting is this delightful, this joyful, this rewarding. There are many sleep-deprived nights, early mornings changing vomit sheets, horror at finding the diaper was removed sometime during afternoon nap, and tears shed over worry and heartbreak. And potty training. Really not looking forward to potty training our toddlers (putting it off for a long, long time). I dont want to jinx it, but I absolutely love 5-years old.

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Are you there, blog? Its me, Kimber.

It has been awhile since my last blog post and what a summer it has been!

The boys wearing matching outfits with their cousin
for my husbands commissioning weekend

Our asthmatic toddler had a flair up 3 weeks after we weaned him off Pulmicort under our doctors guidance. He hadnt had any flair ups and we wanted to see if he still needed daily medication in the summer months, as he is two-years old and is still considered to have "reactive airways." He caught croup which became bronchitis. We landed in the ER, following up with our pediatrician who thankfully followed up with us over the phone as well. Poor little guy was on Orapred in July, back on twice daily Pulmicort doses via nebulizer, and, during the flair up, Albuterol every 3-4 hours. We are keeping him on twice daily doses for 3 weeks before considering to wean him down to once a day, what he was on from May to the beginning of July. Weve also considered Singulair. Well see. Im going to go in and talk to our pediatrician again before we move from North Carolina to South Carolina (in 8 days). Im very (very, very, very) anxious about switching pediatricians this close to cold and flu season, especially since he has needed Orapred 3 times in a calendar year and did the Synagis vaccine last year-- also the number of ER visits he has needed. I feel that our current pediatrician is extremely involved in managing his asthma and that we receive excellent care from that office. The nurses know him. The front desk knows him. Our pediatrician is up to date on his treatment whenever we go in to talk to her and she calls us when hes having flair ups. Yeah, not sure we will find someone like her at the clinic on base, but well see. The clinic in Hawaii had great doctors, but it was hard to get an appointment and there was a lot of waiting. I also like having the childrens ER so close to us now, where we take him now when he needs help. In Hawaii we went to Tripler, which did not have a childrens ER and had really long waits. Im praying the clinic in South Carolina is much more up to date than in Hawaii or we may be switching him to TRICare Standard instead of keeping him on Prime. This is our first move with an asthmatic child.

Ah, yes, can you see there is a lot on my mind?

Our pack out is in 8 days. Our house is NOT ready for the movers to come. My husband graduated and commissioned this past week. Our three-year stay here in North Carolina has come to an end. It feels like we just moved here. In my "About Kimber" during the time hes been going through college with STA-21, it has said:

I started this blog to talk about our life as an active duty military family. With our current assignment, the focus has been much more on the family side of things than the Navy, mostly since the only time I have any Navy interaction is picking my husband up at the ROTC or the Navy/Marine Corps birthday ball.

That is all starting to change. I posted a blog summarizing what the STA-21 program is back in May (read "Seaman to Admiral "Officers" Program"). As I said, my husband just graduated, getting his degree in mechanical engineering in 3-years with a wife and three kids. I am so impressed with his accomplishment! It was a challenging road and often tested our marriage (read "Marriage"), just due to the stress of the program and the pressures of parenthood. One of my favorite things about this studly man that I married is that we always come out closer and better when we go through these challenges. I truly feel we are more in love now than when we got married over six years ago.

Now that hes graduated it is off to Power School. I know I posted information about this in my blog post "Seaman to Admiral "Officers" Program," but here is a quick summary again. Before my husband goes back to submarines (and starts going underway), he still needs to complete 3 Navy schools: power school, prototype, and Submarine Officer Basic School. When he enlisted just over 9 years ago he went through power school and prototype. Now that hes commissioned as an officer, he has to go through them again, this time as an officer. We are moving to South Carolina for him to go through power school. It is a 6 month school and we will be with him the whole time, though he will have long hours. Once he finishes power school, he will have to do prototype and Submarine Officer Basic School (SOBC). Prototype is 6 months long and we will also be with him the whole time, again, long hours. He may do prototype in South Carolina, meaning we wont have to move again, or he may do it in upstate New York, meaning we would be moving again. We wont find out where he is doing prototype until around the time he finishes power school, or just after. SOBC is about 2 months long and is unaccompanied. It is in Connecticut. He may go through SOBC after he completes power school or after he completes prototype; again, we wont find that out until later. Our lives for the next 1-2 years will be very "wait and see." We are just kind of taking all of this as it comes and making plans once we know for sure what we are doing (a big reason why we decided to homeschool for the next couple years). Im sure Ive shared this blog with you before, but I have found this blog helpful when learning about these 3 schools (I didnt know my husband when he went through them the first time), "Very) Unofficial Submarine Officer Pipeline Rundown." Here are the 3 posts on each of these schools: "Navy Nuclear Power School Rundown," "Navy Prototype Rundown (Ballston Spa Version)," and "Submarine Officer Basic School (SOBC) Rundown."

Im a little nervous about making friends again, especially with 3 little boys now. I feel like it will be a lot for my new, unsuspecting friends to take in. :) They arent as portable now that they are 5-years old and 2-years old; they have little minds of their own. I havent decided yet if Im going to join a local twin group there. I have enjoyed the playdates and the twice yearly consignment sale with my local twin group here in North Carolina. We shall see. I may just be busy balancing my husbands schedule and homeschooling our oldest in 5-year old preschool. I feel like my first priority will be finding activities for our boys.

The next couple weeks will be busy for us. I would love to write again soon; it helps me feel more calm and at peace with the world. Ive been working on a couple blog posts that I havent had time to finish or edit and would like to hopefully get them up, you know, when things settle down. Man, I have no idea what it will be like PCSing with 3 kids-- including 2-year old twins and a dog! We are in for an adventure!


Id love to hear from you!

If you have an opinion on using TRICare Prime or TRICare Standard, please share!

Also, Id love to hear your tips on PCSing with lots of kids! The last time we PCSd, we only had one child and he was 2-years old.

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Picture taken by TwinBug Photography at twinbugphotography@yahoo.com

What a morning we have had! The boys woke up a little before 6:30 in foul little moods. I heard one of them screaming like a banshee and the other two arguing. Dragging myself out of bed I was settling he-touched-my-toy and he-hit-me disputes before even brewing my first cup of coffee-- definitely not my favorite way to wake up. From there it just went downhill. I put all the boys back to bed and hoped they would wake up with sunnier dispositions (and mine too). Sadly, breakfast without whining just wasnt in the cards for us this morning.

So how do you do it? How do you discipline three kids, including two-year old twins? I think this becomes a big question for parents around this age. I know I see it a lot on parenting boards and on twin groups. It is overwhelming to figure out the logistics of time outs when one two-year old is causing mayhem here and the other there and you arent sure who started what in the first place.

In my last blog post, I mentioned our war on whining.

Now that our twins are almost two and a half, we have outlawed whining. We dont take it. No whining following along after me. No whining for more. No whining at your brother. No whining for a toy or because youre bored or because you dont know the word. They can say "please" or "help, please" or "Momma help, please" or any word they can think of instead of whining. I want to hear, "More milk, please" or "No, thank you" or "Foot hurt" or "Cup empty" or "Hungry." Whatever it is, I dont want to hear: "Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom....."

And we are enforcing this. It has been an uphill battle, but we are fighting it. It is worth it. I love when I say, "No whining, sir. You need to use words," and he says, "Cup empty." I love when I send them to their room for whining and say, "You can come out when you are ready to stop whining and use words," and he marches his little self out five minutes later with a big smile on his face, ready to use words. Those small victories are progress. They make up for the times that we put a toddler in his room over and over for whining or when we are putting two toddlers in their room over and over again for whining-- long, endless afternoons.

Three kids whining at the kitchen table is like nails on the chalkboard. At those moments, I need to remind myself of the reasons why I love motherhood: toddler hugs and kisses, story time on the couch, the first I love yous, watching the three of them play together. There is nothing endearing about whining. The whining has gotten worlds better since we approached it with a firm hand. I think the war on whining will just take time and consistency.

For other behaviors, it has been trial and error. What works for one boy might not work for another; what is really effective for one boy is less effective on another. For instance, time outs are heartbreaking for one of our toddlers and a hilarious joke for the other; our oldest, if we put him in time out, immediately pretends that he is a baby, doing baby talk and the whole shtick. And some things just dont work for me as the mother who is enforcing these things, even if they work for my friends and their kids. Like one of my friends says that when her oldest starts pretending to be a baby, they run with it, really making her live the life of a baby and all that comes with it. While this did teach their oldest that she did not want to be a baby anymore, but rather the big sister, Im much our about swift punishment and moving on from the offending behavior immediately.

Ive really been enforcing that bad behavior means losing privileges, good behavior means gaining privileges. This morning when the boys were being so badly behaved, they all lost privileges even though only one of them was being exceedingly naughty (the other two were goading him).  So after breakfast when they all ran to the gate, one screaming on the top of this lungs, the others clamoring next to him, "Momma! Momma!" I sent them all to their beds. No more. I had been going in their room every five minutes for the past twenty minutes and was accomplishing nothing: the kitchen was still a mess and I was no closer to being ready for church. I told them that I would not settle every one of their petty disputes-- they need to work it out. And there they sat, each one on his own bed, no talking, no getting off their beds, no hollering for mom. I made them stay on their beds until I finished my to-do list. I got ready and I finished cleaning up the kitchen. The toddlers had a hard time staying on their beds. They would spot a toy across the room and try to run to grab it. When I heard them, I came in, took the toy away, and sent them back to their beds. They only got up twice during their loss of privileges. Our oldest knew better than to get out of bed and was sadly watching his wallet resting at the bottom of his ladder. It had fallen off his bed, the top bunk, when he was settling in and he wished he had it up there with him.

Consistency. It is exhausting. It is exhausting the days that they dont want to listen and exhausting breaking habits they formed during our transition period from moving. We allowed a lot of things during the madness of this past move (read "Asthma, STA-21, commissioning, and PCSing-- yikes!"). Some days I am so glad that we have chosen the battles that we have. I love when I see them using the problem solving skills weve taught them. Im sitting outside with them right now and one of the toddlers knocked a ball into the gutter. Instead of screaming loudly like he did the whole first week we moved here (our new driveway has a slight slant), he said, "Help please, brother," and our oldest came over and got it for him. Or when one of the boys accidentally runs into one of his brothers and immediately says, "Im sorry! Are you okay?" (or "Sorry! Okay?" as the toddlers say), instead of rushing to me, "I didnt mean to! I didnt do anything!" Other days I just wish they would all get along. I really dislike settling these knock down drag out petty disputes first thing in the morning. Maybe I should work on a rule: no fighting until Momma has had a cup or two of coffee? :)

The hardest thing about discipline or working out unseemly behaviors is the temptation to compare yourself or your kids to other families. It is so hard not to wonder what "shes doing different" when you see a mom at the grocery store with kids happily riding in the grocery cart. It is hard not to wonder why your kids wont share when you see brothers stacking blocks together on a playdate. You see a mom tell her kids to knock it off, without counting to three or dishing out threats, and you think, "How does she get them to listen to her??" I dont know. I try not to compare. I love the times that my boys are the well-behaved boys, the few and far between times. We went to Target yesterday and all three of them walked like gentlemen the whole trip including waiting at the check-out counter; all the customers kept complimenting their sweet faces and good manners. This is in stark contrast to the trip my mom and I took the other day when she was in town visiting. Our oldest burst into tears in the parking lot because she veered away from us as we were walking to the store, "Where is Momma going?!" Our toddlers refused to ride in the shopping cart seats and we instead spent the entire trip telling them to "sit down!" in the shopping cart baskets. One of the toddlers ended having a full-blown temper tantrum and my mom had to leave the store with him. We cut our errands short and came home for early lunch and early nap; we never did end up going on the second half our shopping outing. Those two trips were so vastly different, yet they were the same kids, same time of day. I feel like I spin the Wheel of Fortune every time I leave the house, "Will this be a good trip or a bad trip?"

The other struggle is not wanting to be "that mom." Oh, you know, "that mom." That mom you saw before you had kids, deafly pushing a shopping cart of screaming kids through the romance novel section in Target. That mom at the park vacantly texting as her kids rub dirt in each others hair. That mom caving at the check out counter and buying a candy bar for a grubby child already holding a sippy cup of juice and a packet of gummy fruits. And here I am, sitting out front with my boys as they shovel dirt onto our basketball goal while I write a blog post. I wonder what people would think of this snapshot of my life. That really is what those moments are when you see these mothers that you dont know: a snapshot. Ive bribed my kids at the grocery store the day before, for various reasons. My husband and I recently bribed our kids when we made a Costco run the evening our HHGs were delivered. We needed to get mattresses for our boys room. I wonder what people thought of us there as we pushed these big carts with three mattresses piled on, our boys eating bag after bag of applesauce. Not every battle at every moment is worth fighting; I get that. Consistency will win the war, but kids can win a battle every now and then.

This was shared a lot the other week by my mommy friends on Facebook: The Matt Walsh Blog, "Dear Parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents."

This is my blog post encouraging moms to be supportive of each other: "We are moms"

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