More than meets the eye

People think a lot of different things about police officers.  It's no secret, not all of these thoughts are good.  However behind  almost every man with a badge, is a family at home.  We have learned over the last few years to make the most of what you have.  Weekends that hubs is off work is family time, we try not to schedule much activity with anyone else just so we can enjoy our time as a family.  I know as the kids get older it won't happen as often.  One of the things that we do as a family is baseball.  Thing 1 is on a team, Thing 2 is on another team.  That's right 2 different teams, 2 different schedules, the works.  Hubs however has found himself helping with Thing 2's tball team this year, at least when he is there.  When I say helping, not only do I mean helping coach one of the bases and telling the kids when to stop and go, but also helping with crowd control. Let's face it, and 4, 5 and 6 it is as much crowd control as anything else. 

So for all the folks who think the man writing you a ticket is a ____________ (insert ugly word here), just remember that somewhere there is a little fella waiting on daddy to get home to play ball.

Time

There are many situations that make you step back and go "Why did I do this to myself again?"  This is usually sparked when my planner/calendar is extremely full.  Well we are at that point right now.  My planner is color coded.  Pink highlighter for one boy, yellow for the other.  Hubs work schedule is also written in, along with important stuff for both of our moms-doctor appts, out of town trips etc.  In amongst all of that you have to make time to handle the everyday life things at home, laundry, dishes (that some how mount up even though no one actually eats at home) cleaning the bathroom (let's face it the house becomes a rest area only, used primarliy for its facilities). 

Now let me just say that my family is not an overly busy family for about 10 months out of the year.  I tell my kids that they can pick one thing to do at a time.  Thing 1 came home from school the first of the year and said "Mom I wanna do cub scouts"  the converstation then went like this

MOM: Well honey that is great but if you do cub scouts, then you can't play baseball.
THING: I can do both mom, it's easy.
        Let me just say here that he is 7 and doesn't yet understand the total logistics of it all
MOM:  You may be able to, but the person who is responsible for taking you to events can't do both.  So you need to pick, do you want to be a scout, or a ball player.
        Let me say here, that the Scouts organization is a grand thing, and I am not against my sons being one, but we aren't the go go go all the time kind of family so I made him pick.
Thing:  Well, Mama, that's not really a hard choice to make...I'm a ball player, but can I play football to?
MOM:  walks off to another room shaking head

The reason why I limit my kids on what they can and can't do activity wise is very simple.  It is a 4 letter word, TIME.  Given the schedule that HUBS has with work, and the chances that he has to work on a day he should be off, and the fact that I work 30 minutes from home; things have to be limited. 

Right now both kids play baseball, one is on a teeball team, the other coach pitch.  That's right, we have games the same night at different fields at the same time-not many because thankfully the coach is the same for both. 

This goes back to the married single parent thing.  What do you do when Hubs is working a shift, Thing 1 has a game at 715 in one town, and Thing 2 has a game at 7 in a totally different town, 15 minutes away?  Pray that their grandma is around!!! 

The joys of motherhood, wifehood and LEOhood!!!!!

New friends

Since Hubs has moved up in rank, he is meeting other officers from other departments.  This is a glorious thing.  Not only is it a great network thing, its a great Hubs thing.  After a week in class a few weeks back, he found out that he and another detective share an interest.  Arrowhead collecting.  These two along with another non-LEO got together over the weekend and went and did a little searching for them.  The kids and I enjoyed a morning at home with nothing to do other than watch cartoons.

Something you find once you get into law enforcement is that many of the people that you thought were your friend before, well let's just say they don't stick around very long once you earn a badge.  So it becomes pretty obvious that most of your friends will be other officers.  This has many advantages. One, you have a friend who truly understands what your job entails, stress wise, schedule and things like that.  You also have a friend, that especially if they work the same shift as you, learns your tone and understands when you need help just by the way you announce your number when calling into dispatch.   It also means if this new friend has a spouse, or significant other, then the families more than likely will become friends. 

I am thankful for the friends I have made since this journey started.  I am thankful even more for friends that Hubs has made and the ones I know are watching his back.

Your sins will find you out

News broke today of an officer in our area being arrested.  All though I am not 100% surprised given this particular officer's misgivings, it is still very sad.  Far to often the Law enforcement community is not shown in a positive light.  More often than not, attention is only placed on officers that have screwed up in some way.  This is something that irks me to no end.  However in this particular case the attention brought to this particular officer is of his own doings. 

The circumstances behind are not of issue, it's the simple fact that very seldom do officers receive good publicity.  Is it simply because we as a society only want the negative?  Could it possibly be that these men and women are in a profession that is so under appreciated that no one thinks that positives are worth mentioning.

I mean honestly.  How often do you hear of an officer going to talk to kids at school,  or holding a child who is scared or hurt.  These are the things that officers do, day in and day out.  More than once I have seen my husband buy a meal for someone that needs help, or go eat lunch at the school with our son so kids will see him there and know who he is if they ever need him.  Not to mention the countless number of times that he has gone out  of his way to make sure that someone had the help they needed.  He doesn't do it for attention.  No he does it because it is part of who he is.

I wish just once you could see something good.

School glorious school

One of the many glorious things about being a police officer is the amount of schooling you still have to do once you graduate rookie school.  It makes you a better officer, it looks good on paper, such as a resume if you should ever need it.  It also makes for one tired wife.  This week the hubs has had to go to school.  He is enjoying it.  He is in class from 830 to 430, all week.  The class is about 45 minutes away.  Because of his regular work schedule he is not accustom to getting up at 5:30.  Thankfully I have been getting up earlier so the kids and I are on the ball in the mornings.  That is the plus side to school.  The down side however is that hubs is basically useless this week. 

Granted this is his long week to work and he has tried to get in some extra hours at work so he isn't so far behind on paperwork and all of that jazz.  The down side to this, is that it is baseball season in our house. Both of our boys play baseball.  One is playing tee ball, because he is only 5, the other is playing coach pitch, he is 7.  Tee ball practices one day a week, coach pitch practices 2, for an hour and a half, at 5:30. 

Schooling is an on going process, and thankfully all of hubs schools have been around here so far, thankfully.  But I am sure there will come a day when I'm not so lucky.  Until then we thank heavens for how lucky we have been thus far, and hope it stays that way.

The Chase

I like to think of myself as pretty well laid back when it comes to being an officer's wife.  Meaning the long shifts, time apart and over all concern for safety don't freak me out as much as they did at first.  When phones calls aren't answered, or returned as soon as I would like, I don't jump to conclusions.  When he is 3 hours late from a shift, I don't panic and jump in the car and ride to the PD just to check on him (mostly because now when he is 3 hours late coming home he gets here at 3 a.m. and well to be honest I am asleep).  However there is one part of the job that no matter how long I am married to the hubs it scares the ever living daylights out of me.  That my friends is a chase. 

Let me make an important point here.  A chase is part of the job, they teach how to drive a patrol car in a chase in rookie school.  It's gonna happen.  I am ok with that, and well let's face it, even if I wasn't what can I do about it, right?  Hearing about a chase afterwards doesn't bother me.  It gets me when I see my husband jump up and run out of a restaurant, or even home when he has stopped by puts me on edge. The worry comes in because we have known too many officers to have been seriously injured in chases.  I would prefer Hubs not be a statistic.

We were out to a family dinner one night and one of these calls came through.  The lady waiting on us must have saw the look on my face because she put her arm around me and said he'll be ok.  I said thank you, and I know but having to watching him run out like that scares me to no end. 

Tonight one of these lovely little calls came through.  Hubs and one of the other on duty officers stopped by the house to enjoy some fresh baked home made bread.  Just as soon as they both finished eating the call came in.  Hubs and the rookie jumped up and took off.  I had planned on showering and going to bed when they left, had it been under normal circumstances.  Now I will just try and patiently wait to hear from him.  The only real advantage to having nervous energy is that my floors get mopped.  Something good does come out of it I suppose.

Laundry Laundry Laundry

One of the many joys of the lifestyle involved with being an officer's wife is the laundry.  Now anyone will tell you laundry is a simple process, right.  You wash, you dry, you iron if need be, hang on a hanger and put away, right?  Well in my house, not so much.  There is the special detergent to keep darks from fading, and the of course the 9,202 pockets on a pair of pants to empty, and lets not forget the shirt pockets.  Oh wait I did forget the shirt pockets.  Hubs because of being a Sgt no long has to wear the basic uniform THANK HEAVENS.  He is now in slacks and a pull over shirt.  This in theory is a good thing.  However his wonderful shirts have these two handy little pen holding pockets in the sleeves.  Yes as you can imagine these two little nifty pens resting happily in the sleeve pocket while the shirt hangs on the bedpost just waiting for Laundry day.  Laundry day rolls around and as you can imagine, the 9,202 pants pockets get emptied, shirt gets picked up off the bed post and put with rest of the work clothes, never thinking about the two little nifty pen pockets on the sleeve.

I get a phone call about 4 hours later, because said shirt was placed in to dry before leaving for work that morning.  Phone call goes something similar to this:
Me:  Hey Honey
Hubs:  Do you know what you forgot to do?
Me: Not sure why don't you enlighten me
Hubs: You know that gel pen I liked so good that I said no one else could use...it was in my shirt sleeve pocket
Me: mumbles ugly words
Hubs: its on everything, you know all my work clothes in that load of laundry
Me;mumbles ugly words
Hubs: Guess  my fave shirt is ruined
Me: I'm sorry--mumbles ugly words.

So you get the jist of th giant guilt trip hubs was laying on me.  Little did he realize I have an arsenol, not only of ugly words to mumble but of ways to not have to go shopping.  So after 4 days and one can of hair spray 95% of the stain is gone.  I still have one tricky spot on the back I am working on.

Cross your fingers folks and pray it comes out, and never forget those nifty little pockets on the sleeves.