M.I.A.

Monday afternoon began like every other afternoon - headed home from work, hung out with Addie, and even got to see Lee since he was off.  Started to cook dinner, had an ADHD moment and forgot half of the ingredients that I needed for dinner. Sent Lee to the store and heard him drive up in the driveway.  Mustered up the courage to let him know that I had also forgotten 2 other things that we needed and that he was going to have to return to the store.  Listened to Lee laugh at me for forgetting things and remind me to speak now or forever hold my piece because he was NOT going back to the store a 3rd time.

And then, it happened. Right there on my cutting board.  Amidst the lettuce, cilantro, and onions I was patiently dicing for taco night.  The tip of my left thumb went MIA.  Well, not MIA actually.  Just missing from hand.  I knew where it was, could see it laying there on my knife.  Just no longer attached to my finger. So i guess MFF would be more appropriate.

I'm gonna miss that tip, she was a good one.

A Poor Idea...

I was reading online this morning and heard mention in a few comments of  something ridiculous happening in DC (other than Congress, budgets, and debt talks).  I searched for awhile and found this article over here.

Wow.  That's about all I have to say on that.  Wonder how those poor firefighters think about the city putting them into a firefight of a whole other kind?  Wonder how the police officers feel about the city basically saying that they are not doing a good enough job and can be replaced by big shiny fire trucks who, if they should see something, will simply call the police.

How is that different than a city-paid neighborhood watch program?  Bet if they kept the firefighters actually fighting fire and not sitting in trucks watching for crime, they might be able to afford more cadets to go through the academy to actually do some police work!

My guess is that it will last until some hoodlum either pranks the fire trucks, or ends up injuring a fire fighter... then the community will make some noise about the ridiculousness of this.  Everyone seems to like fire fighters.... so do I , I just happen to like them fighting fires and taking care of accidents with medic... not patrolling the streets with fire extinguishers.

Just like I love my police officers, patrolling the streets with more than a water gun.

Married to the Badge

Lee's been a police officer for more than 3 years now so I have to say that there are few times now that I actually sit back and think about life as a police wife being different.  It's the new "normal" so I forget at times that it is so different than what a lot of my friend's lives are like.

For the most part, regardless of job, most of them physically see their spouses on a daily basis.  And awake too!  Their phones ring with an unknown number and their first thought is annoyance at a sales call, not anxiety that something has gone wrong.  They are usually able to answer the question, "so, what does your husband do?" without having to pause and wait for 1) a barrage of complaints of the person's last interaction with a police officer, 2) a story about the person's friend's encounter with a police officer, or 3) a look of pity and comments either berating the police, or how horrible it must be to be saddled with one.  Sure, sleep is hard to come by, there are some long and lonely nights, and hearing your husband's profession constantly mocked and dragged through the mud is no fun.  And then, there are some odd things about being married to a cop - places you just "can't" go, difficulty being in crowds, learning to live with an always on edge/high alert husband...

Yep, those are most of the things that people think about or talk about when the topic of being married to a cop comes up.  Mostly negative, not a whole lot of hope, and a lot of awkward conversations (as if I don't have enough ease pouncing right into awkwardness already!)

But today I wanted to bring up of the positives.  Call it false hope, ignorance is bliss, or what have you, there are actually a lot of positives about being married to a cop:

- Random days off in the middle of the week - he may not be home for Saturday nights but he can hit up a movie with you on a Tuesday afternoon at matinee prices

- More time with his kids - Lee gets to see Addie 3 or 4 hours every morning and often gets full days off to spend with her - not many high powered execs in their glass walls can say that

- Who wouldn't want to know the current or projected status of every single license plate that passes you while you drive in the car?  "That tag's expired, that one is past it's 30 days, that one doesn't look right..."

- Pride - every cop I pass makes me think of my husband, I feel so proud of him and the job these guys and gals do everyday.  Plus, there are few things hotter than getting to see your man come home each night in full uniform.

- Husband is off in the mornings so he can pull food out of the freezer, finish the laundry, and grab last minute things at the store that you forgot to do before leaving for work (when you're as ADD as I am, this is quite convenient!)

- Their instinctual reach for the blue lights when they see someone driving crazily is kinda funny as you're driving along in your personal truck on your way to church

- It's slightly amusing when you joke with them that you're gonna punch them if they don't stop "x", and without missing a beat they reply with all of the citations and misdemeanors you could be charged with

- Lastly, there is the old adage - I can feel safe at night cause I sleep with a cop :-)

Another Try

I've been "dark" from the blogging world for quite some time now. Not that I haven't been checking up on my favorite bloggers, or paying attention to twitter and facebook feeds. I've just been trying to rethink and focus this blog.

I know, this ADHD-er just said "focus" HA! Anyways, from here on out I will be making some changes and updates to the blog. At the suggestion of some friends I'll be adding some cooking info, some couponing stuff (yes Shara, I may even include a groupon link or two ;-) ). Lastly, I plan to start to incorporate some of my current life point of view as a police wife. Lee suggested it earlier in the year as a cathartic way to help make police life more approachable to other gals and apparently it took me more than 6 months to decide that was a pretty good idea!

Lee's been really busy at work lately and had a part in a high-profile call here in Charlotte last Friday.

More on that later in the week.

Almost a year later...

AI've put off writing this post for quite some time, mainly because I wasn't really sure what to say.

People ask you a lot of questions when you are pregnant/a mother. Lots of the time I just make stuff up to say - half of the time saying something off the wall to be a smart alec and to point out the inappropriateness of asking such personal/random questions of people. (spoiler alert), yes, that means that no, I really am not waiting for Addie to clean my entire house, nor do I expect her to actually speak her mind to tell me what she wants -it's just way easier to say than the obvious - yes, I am aware my house is a wreck and the floor needs to be dusted/vacuumed/mopped - and if I knew why my daughter was crying don't you think I would be doing what she needed to stop it?

Seriously, people ask the most random of questions. But I really didn't have much of an answer to these so I just dodged them - how did it feel for you to have your daughter in the NICU for a week? What was it like for you to go home without your baby? Aren't you worried about her having more seizures or having lasting damage from them? and the most recent - Have you been thinking a lot about where you were at this time last year now that Addie is about to be 1 years old? To be blunt, I try not to talk too much about that week for a plethora of reasons. 1) I feel badly talking about it because so many others parent's stories are way worse than mine and ended up badly... I got my baby and she seems fine - so I feel guilty about talking about it. 2) Speaking of guilt, I feel a lot of that - whether or not I really could have done anything about it, the fact remains that I feel guilty - for being stubborn about a C-section, for not switching doctors at the beginning, for not saying something to the nurses sooner or not demanding they watch her more... for a lot of reasons really. It was so weird today - one of our friends had a baby at the same hospital that we had Addie. Addie and I went up to see them and it was surreal. They had Andrea, the same baby nurse that Addie had. The whole time there felt so odd - the drive there was familiar - we drove it more than 20 times in a week. Everything seemed the same, like time had stood still - yet things were drastically different. I wanted to take her to the NICU to see Ms. Donna - to remind her how much her work means to people.

11 months and 2 weeks ago was one of the best days of my life - regardless of how it happened, we go to meet our little girl and I thought that the "hard part" was over. Not that that I thought parenting would be easy, but that since her birth was so difficult, the "drama" was over and we could go home and just be happy together. Flash forward to day 2 of my life when within the period of 30 min we went from putting our new baby into her car seat to go home, to watching her be whisked away by a team of physicians going to perform a myriad of tests on her and we could just " go grab lunch or take a walk..." Right. It felt like a never-ending sucker punch to the gut. Honestly I didn't talk a lot about it because I didn't have the words to say - everything I could think of seemed undeserving of the situation. It was surreal and odd and unnatural to go home and sleep at home for longer than I did when I was at work. I came home the first night and closed her door and didn't' reopen it until we came home later that week, baby in tow.

I've been thinking about exactly "how I feel" about Addie turning one. I was telling Lee the other day that I think the appropriate word is oddly "relieved." Most blogs of moms that I read say "scared" or "sad I'm losing my baby" or something to that aspect. I say relieved because I think that this next year will be the start of something new. Because of the seizures and because of the drama of her birth, Addie was left with 2 spots on her brain that are dead - and no one knew what ramifications (if any) they would carry. I feel like I haven't really breathed in the past year - every twitch, every odd cry, every milestone, I feel like I've watched every move she's made and checked off an imaginary checklist. Sit - check. Crawl - check. Words - check. Steps - check. And finally walk - check. I finally feel like we can be normal and not be hypersensitive about her development. I heard the doctors last summer when they said that we didn't have to worry- but at that point I was over pretty much anything the doctors had to say looking at their track record.

So relieved that this past year is almost over. It's been a great one. I really never knew that I could be so happy and that I'd actually be ok with and almost enjoy having to get up early on a Saturday. There is nothing like rolling out of bed and walking into her room to see her smiling face pop up over the crib railing. These next few years will probably be my favorite until she is in high school - and I couldn't be more excited to live life with my little girl, hubby, and pups.

Some women say they are born to be mothers, others say you learn as you go. Me, I was thrown into the deep end - but I've learned that I can swim.