Why yes officer, I could use a Xanax.

Sage says:

Shayla needs our prayers. 

No really.  She has had more than her fair share of what I call dias de los crapola.  She is calling it “2015 – the year of suck”. 

We both have alcoholism in our families, so we know first hand joking about turning to alcohol is not so funny.  But damn, they have had a year.  It makes me want to pour myself a drink.  So, here I am, virtual drink in hand and me being me, I have been trying to figure out what I can do to help.  And then I realize, the year of suck has been that way for many of us. 

I have a lot of friends hanging on to the idea of middle class with holes in their gloves and beans in the pantry. 

Living paycheck to paycheck, and working extra jobs to try and get ahead. 

I feel like we are doing pretty well, but living in a community that most live under the poverty line makes middle class seem more approachable, for me.  The illusion is just over there, under that rainbow!  If we work hard enough, we will get there!  We laugh at things like ‘net worth’ because what that really means is we paid off some portion of our debt this year.  Toss in a medical bill, and there that goes. 

Having a spouse in law enforcement means a lot these days.  Shayla has been just such a spouse far longer than me, so I can’t yet fathom it all.  For me, it means denial to some degree.  Shane is good at what he does, and the man has far more integrity than I…

Squirrel:  remember the last blog, about telling the truth, yup – he was all for telling that teacher that she makes me crazy.  I went for awesome. 

At any rate, he is a fast thinker, a problem solver, he is tolerant, and is not racist, so all the social things going on about police – well I don’t need to worry.  And the bad guys – they will see that he is kind and fair so they will leave him alone.  This works for me.  And then Shayla sends the family a message: “her husband  is OK.  But has been involved in an officer shooting”.

Squirrel:  Shane was home that day, taking some of his comp time because he has been working so much overtime.  We were reading Shaylas message at the same time.  I cried, tears poured out of my face like a shower faucet, I mean, I sobbed.  Good Lord I tried to slow it down, but they just poured.  And the look on his face was confusion…he thought I missed the part that said “He is OK.”  I didn’t, I am just overly empathetic that way and could’t quit thinking about Shayla and her family.  I was thankful, and I always cry at things that make me thankful.  I was scared, too, and dang, that makes me cry as well. 

He is OK.  And, Shayla is such a good role model.  I’m a hundred miles away, bawling freakishly, and she is giving us details and remaining cool and calm.  And collected.  And caring.  Now, I know somewhere under there she had to be freaking out a little.  Right, it was him calling – so she knew he was alive.  But brains don’t do the math and hearts sure as hell don’t… she went through the motions as only her WonderWoman self could.  Somewhere in the middle of all of this was her daughters car breaking down, on the freeway.  And throw in all the daily worries and stress?

Squirrel:  I know right, pour that virtual shot.  She has just had Los Dia del los dias crapola. 

So.  If you believe in prayer, or warm thoughts, or love… send her some.  Send some to their whole family.  Even with as good an outcome as could hope – it is a trying time, in a trying time. 

A little extra love sent their way can’t hurt. 

I know I am thankful and keeping my prayers rolling.

Cheers.

Shayla says

I will admit that drinking shots of Fireball has crossed my mind this week.

I’m not an alcoholic (I should probably seek a support group for an ice cream addiction but we’ll save that discussion for another time) and only just discovered a few years ago that my liver can process liquor better than a frat boy.

ADD sidebar: I found out I was pregnant just days before my 21^st birthday. That kind of poo poo’d any thoughts I had for a drinking celebration. Sure I had my fair share of underage drinking (the statute of limitations has run out, right?), in fact, we won’t discuss how old (or young…shout out to my cousin Carolee) I was the first time I got drunk but as for adulthood, I rarely drink and only discovered my ability to consume hard liquor and still function perfectly fine after I hit my forties.

Yes. This has been the “year of suck” as I have affectionately decided to call it. It started with my husband having major neck surgery in January and being out of work until May.

ADD sidebar: Money. Sage mentioned it so I will address it briefly. The Bible says it is the root of all evil. I agree. Bills are evil. The fact that every time we manage to put some aside in an effort to get ahead or do the "living" that everyone says people should do with their time and it gets sucked away because of health issues or employment issues or any number of issues is frustrating and in a world that requires money can be debilitating and yes. It feels evil. 

It doesn't mean I'm not thankful for what I have. It doesn't mean I didn't celebrate the birth of my beautiful grandson this year. Or the graduation of my daughter from college. Or my youngest son moving on to high school and receiving the eighth grade American Legion Award like his older brother and sister. 

And in all honesty, I've been in more dire straits than these, wondering if I would lose my house or choosing to drive my toddler son to the hospital after he had a seizure because I couldn't afford the ambulance bill or living on peanut butter and jelly. I guess there is a part of me that fears as the middle class shrinks, we just seem to get squeezed out of the bubble and damn, peanut butter and jelly gets old. And dammit, you kind of start to feel like when you're almost forty-five-years-old the universe would cut you a break. But enough whining about money...

From May to September we also experienced multiple car breakdowns, computer failures, the death of major household appliances, and a surgery for me too.

And now that we’ve almost reached the last month of the year, for the first time in his twenty-one years in law enforcement, on Monday, my husband was in a shooting.

ADD sidebar: For those of you who want to criticize how quick police officers are to fire their guns, I want you to let this sink in a bit.

My husband has been on the department of the fifth largest city in the nation for twenty-one years this coming January. He even spent some time on the SWAT team.

And this is the first and only time he has ever fired his weapon at someone. And believe me, he has been in the position where that use of force would've been justified over the years. That's how bad this situation had to be. 

“Well why didn’t he just use his baton or taser? They do that in the movies all the time!”

Ya know what else they do in the movies? Yell “cut” and end the scene without real life carnage.

Ya know what they don’t do in the movies?  Get shot at with real bullets.

It’s not easy being a law enforcement spouse these days.

I mean it never has been easy—the hours suck, the pay is low, the stress is high—but lately because of the actions of a few, there is heightened scrutiny of the multitude. There's hostility for an entire profession and as a human being, I will admit, in some instances I understand why...and sometimes I don't.

I’m not naïve enough to think that there are not bad cops out there but sometimes I have to wonder if others are so naïve that they don’t realize there are some genuinely bad people out there.  

When I got the phone call on Monday, it was like the world stopped spinning for a moment so I could catch up and comprehend what he was saying on the other end, “Hi hon. I’m okay. I’m calling to tell you I’ve been in a shooting. I’m not hurt. No officers were hurt. Bad guy is wounded but not dead. I can’t say anything else. I love you.” Click.

See that’s the other part of being a law enforcement spouse. You get to skim the news stations for information because you don’t know anything either except you get to know that it’s someone you love that is in the middle of the shit.

I didn’t get to see him or talk to him again for nine hours.

Given that the shooting is still under investigation and will be for several weeks at least, I don’t know what limitations I have on what I can share so I will say as much as the news has—my husband was providing back up to another officer. When he arrived at the scene, the suspect began shooting at both of them so both officers shot back.

ADD sidebar: I deal with stress by making jokes. Actually I deal with everything by making jokes. So you better believe when I found out more details such as the suspect had run to the top of a set of stairs of a church “seeking refuge” according to the news, before he started shooting I had to ask my husband if the shooter was a hunchback yelling “sanctuary!”

When my husband called, our fourteen-year-old son, who had the misfortune of being the only one home with me, had just gone to take a shower. This was a blessing because I don’t know that I would’ve been able to maintain a cool façade.

ADD sidebar: I know Sage thinks I have all of this under control. I’m a good faker. I’m a highly anxious person to begin with and after years of training, I can look like I’m cool and collected on the outside while on the inside I feel like Jello in an earthquake. I suffer from esophageal spasms from stress and have since I was a teenager. I’m like the best and worst Star Wars characters—Yoda and Jar Jar Binks—rolled into one.

I tried to call my husband’s parents. No answer. I tried to call my husband’s twin sister. No answer.

Dammit people! This is the age where no one is out of reach! What the hell?!

By the time I made my third call, I had reached full on panic mode because nothing says loneliness like spending time with your own racing mind.

My best friend was the poor recipient of anxiety ridden word vomit as I blurted out, “I just need to talk to someone so I can get my shit together before Caleb gets out of the shower!”

And that is why she is my best friend.

Because she helped me calm down and get my shit together so I could go forth in full “business mode” and let the people know that needed to know with minimal voice quivering and hysteria. 

ADD sidebar: This is not something that they prepare law enforcement spouses for. Like what is the etiquette in this situation? Do I have to actually CALL everyone? Is a Facebook message or text message poor form? Where is the Emily Post of this crap?! Why doesn’t Dear Abby have a 24 hour hotline?!

Even though some of my family is in another state, like I said, police officers are under a lot of scrutiny these days so I sent a family message out.  I’m awful sorry to have caused Sage distress. I should’ve known how it would affect her, partly because she is loving and compassionate, and partly because, as a fellow law enforcement spouse it would make her wonder if she would ever be in my shoes one day.

A few days after the shooting, Sage asked me how I’ve coped with being a law enforcement wife for so long since she is fairly new at it. The best advice I had to give was to I tell her this story:

When my husband had been on the force for a few years, I pulled into the driveway one day and noticed a news van sitting on the street in front of our house.

I opened my car door, they opened their car door.

I jumped out of the car and grabbed my babies, running for the house.

They jumped out of their van wielding their camera.

I frantically thought, “This is it. This is how I’m going to find out my husband has been killed in the line of duty.”

I stood in the darkness of my house with my back pressed against the door, shaking and crying.

But they never came to the door.

It turns out they were trying to interview someone across the street about an accident they had been involved in.

I was so traumatized by an experience that was all a figment of my imagination that my husband promised me, “If anything ever happens on the job, I will find a way to call you. If I don’t call you and they show up at the door with a police car, that’s how you’ll know it’s bad.”

And for the rest of his tenure, I didn’t think about it again...until I got the call.

And while I'm thankful to get the call and not the knock on the door,  I don’t know how it will be when he returns to the street. I don’t know if my mind has already leaped to DEFCON 5 for the rest of his career.

All I do know is that I have to have faith that while there are bad police officers, my husband is a good one.

And while there are bad people, I have to have faith that the good ones will prevail.

And so maybe it’s not just me over here wallowing in my “2015—the year of suck” that needs the prayers, though I’ll gladly accept them, but perhaps it’s humanity itself.

But if you have Fireball or ice cream or money you’re not using…well hell, I’m no saint. I’ll accept those all for myself.

If Mom Knew Then What She Knows Now...

Sage Says:

There are things that they should tell you about having children, but they don’t. 

They stink. 

Oh my.  You will gag more during the child’s first year than you can imagine.  And it doesn’t go away quietly as they get older.  My eleven year old daughter sat down with me this morning, and farted.  Now, I come from a long, exhaustive line.  No, really.  The stories I could tell. 

But my kids could be double agents, developing a newer, deadlier version of phenacyl chloride.  They are rank.  And, then there is their feet.  And their laundry. 

But no one tells you that part. 

They will hurt you in ways you can NOT imagine. 

Like your heart is going to just explode. 

The broken collarbone in a fall down 2 flights of stairs – nothing compared to seeing your kid make a poor decision.  Or get hurt by a friend.  Or the time they get really sick, and you don’t know why…  Your heart will be pulled, stepped on, mashed, force-fed through a meat grinder, only to be handed back to you and fed again, through a different grinder with even more painful blades. 

They will NOT listen. 

Like the time my oldest, at about age 6, got in a car with a stranger.  Nope, ‘stranger, danger’ was no where to be found in her 6 year old brain when the opportunity to try it out came along.  They don’t listen.  No hablo la parent-speak. 

We were at a rodeo, and she had made friends with another little boy.  All kinds of things were happening, and I had told her she could go over towards the stands with her new friend.  I look up in time to see her leaving the rodeo grounds with a tall, rough looking adult male and her little friend.  I started running.  I yelled a lot – but no one listened.  Not her, not the other people milling around.  I was running when I saw her get in a funky looking jeep thing.  I ran after them as they drove around the food court, up a hill and back around, parking.  The adult walked off as I grabbed her.  They were so excited because that cool guy gave them a ride in his cool army jeep.  I delivered the other little boy and talked to her at length about never, ever doing that again.  I was so upset that she didn’t judge the book by the cover.  That guy looked like someone I would envision dealing drugs.  And we had talked about this exact thing.  She didn’t listen. 

Squirrel:  Obviously, we also have the conversation about NOT judging a book by the cover, so I am covered with the whole not listen thing there. 

More Squirrel: I regularly had conversations in my head with that adult, chewing his ass for teaching my child that ‘stranger danger’ is just something my mommy made up to keep me from having fun.  My conversation also usually involves me crotch kicking him and him making up for it by coming and speaking in front of the whole elementary about how wrong he was and how important it is to listen to your mommies. 

Bottom line, you can talk all you want, but they don’t listen. 

They will listen.

And then, when you don’t want them to listen, they will.

Like the time one came home with yet another note from the teacher, and I told my husband that the teacher was so *&$% anal.  Yup.  That was a repeat. 

Seriously.  They don’t listen when you tell then things to keep them alive – but the first time you make a disparaging remark about the teacher – they ask her why she is?

Be prepared.  They are listening.

Squirrel:  My kids have been taking Spanish at school every year.  They don’t even know how to say their own name in Spanish.  Until I try and talk in code and in Spanish about a covert operation in front of them.  Suddenly they understand every word, and they are laughing at my attempts to say “fat man” when I tell my husband to remember to eat the cookies so it looks like the fat man really did visit.  “La mama diga “El gordo, gordito” pero no bien, lol”  Yes, they still say lol.  They are bilingual like that. 

They will make you into a liar.    

Oh yes.

Even if you manage to avoid the obvious pitfalls like Santa and the tooth fairy, they will turn you.

“Oh, No, Mrs, X, I didn’t say you were *&$% anal, I said you were *%#& awesome – you know how kids get things wrong.  We are so impressed that you noticed that ______ was doing ____!

Squirrel:  I really do believe honesty is important.  Really.  But sometimes, when I get busted like that, well; you know, case in point. 

But they are worth it.  Every stinky, smelly, listening/not listening, heart hurting untruth… no part of it comes close to the heart stretching love that they bring. 

No, I don’t think I will tell my newly pregnant friend these things.  Instead, I think I will tell her about how good a job she will do.  How much joy will come from this.  How amazing the love is.  How I would do it again, a million times over for just one second of this love that they have generated. 

Shayla says:

When I was pregnant with fourth child and my friend was nearing the due date of her first, she asked me what it felt like to have a baby.

“Have you ever seen Poltergeist 2 where Craig T Nelson swallows the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle and then it grows in him and he ends up vomiting out this human sized worm? It’s like that but with your vagina. It literally feels like there is a human being coming out of you. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Perhaps that explains why we are pretty much just Facebook friends now, though I notice she did go on to have a second child so it must not have been too horrific.

Sage was pretty spot on with her thoughts on kids and the things no one prepares you for.

They will break your heart.

One time my daughter told me she wished my best friend was her mom.

I’ll be honest.

I wasn’t that hurt. At that moment with the way she was behaving, I wished my best friend was her mom too.

But sometimes they cut you to the quick with or without even realizing it. And you have to be this badass mamba jamba in a gangsta movie who is like, “You can’t hurt me homes…” and then go to your room and cry in a pillow.

They do stink.

And it’s not just the boys.

Let me tell you, soccer girls get a funk like you wouldn’t believe from those shin guards and goalie gloves and the feet…I literally had to ban a certain type of leather sandal from my daughter’s closet because of the stench that will turn the air green in the car.

They listen and don’t listen.

Much like their parents, they have selective hearing that they use to filter information that is only beneficial to a) them arguing their case like a veteran prosecutor or b) will embarrass you in front of friends, colleagues, or school staff.

They lie and make you lie.

Everybody lies. But the truth is, my kids aren’t that astute at lying.

My daughter would confess more than you ever needed to know…something to do with firstborn guilt I guess.

My oldest son would never make eye contact when he was lying.

My youngest son used to flare his nostrils.

On the flip side, our house seems to have a lot of honesty too.

The problem is when it is brutal honesty…like the time my daughter and oldest son got into a whining, crying argument about “she said her band is better than my band!” because they both had formed “bands” with classmates that consisted of one kid who played the violin and two girls who sang off key. Insert mother brutal honesty here: “I’ll be honest guys, you both kinda suck so get over it.”

But one thing Sage left out that I think has been the crux of my parenting:

Kids will make you do things that you never imagined you would do.

Like trying to catch vomit with your bare hands…

Or scooping poop out of the bathtub after your three-year-old reasons it was a bathtime accident of “I just went to toot and there it was.”

Or threatening someone with physical harm in a fit of rage because they endangered your child and meaning it.

Or despite the fact that it’s like Craig T Nelson in Poltergeist 2 expelling the tequila worm, you still opt to go through childbirth over and over again.

And even though they are like little mind control machines and they will stretch you further than the limbs of Stretch Armstrong at times in terms of what you think you are capable of handling, Sage is right.

They are absolutely worth it all…the stench, the lies, the pain, the vomit, the poop, and all of the good things in between.

Picture this...

Sage says:

I might drag the family out for family picture day.  There is snow on the ground.  It is beautiful out.

It will probably involve fibbing to my husband. 

And bribing the children. 

It usually involves a whole lot of “SMILE, darnit, we are having fun.”  And we do.  When its done, they all giggle at how much mom turns into a psycho. 

Squirrel:  it reminds me of a sweet teenager we once knew (she’s grown now, with children of her own) who told us with such complete and utter belief, “Beauty is pain.”  (she was talking about tweezing the brows.)  Picture day is similar to tweezing. 

We are a two hour drive from the city and most portrait places.  I drove us to ABQ once, when we had two of our three kids.  Monte was a tiny baby, Bay was just walking.  We got in to the department store portrait studio.  And it was hot.  And stuffy.  And holy crap, did I mention hot?  We fell apart and that little college gal working the camera caught it all.  My hair was standing on end.  Apparently, it was also humid in there.  Bay cried, Monte cried and I felt like this was the peak of my failure as a parent.  Shane tried to make it work, but it just wasn’t any fun.  And we paid money for that fine experience. 

You’d think I would learn.  But, I want family portraits.  It is the one ‘normal family’ activity that I cling to.  Loved ones all tell me they much prefer our impromptu shots over the year.  Bayler on her horse, Monte marching and Keek dressing up.  Shane and I smiling for a selfie on the mountain gathering cattle. 

Squirrel:  That selfie of Shane and I is my favorite.  He wasn’t looking at the camera, but at me, and the camera caught the look a man gives the woman he loves more than anything.  Anytime I feel sad, I look at that picture.  It reminds me how lucky I am to have such love.  Somehow I don’t get that look when I am barking out orders, “Step closer.  NOT that close.  To the side.  No, the other side!”  “Smile, darnit!”  but he loves me, so we take the pictures. 

After the portrait studio fiasco,  I get out the camera and tripod and we pick a new spot on the ranch we have leased and everyone gets clean.  Well, mostly.  I never have it together enough to actually make us match or accessorize.  We are doing good to have hair combed and our best pair of jeans on (you know, with the fewest holes).   Shane always mentions that we only need to take one picture because I invariably use one of the first three that I take.  And I usually take at least a hundred.  But, now I stop halfway through and tell everyone to take the crazy picture.  The kids love that – and more often than not it ends up the family Christmas card picture. 

I like the family portraits.  We have taken one a year every year.  Each one shows a tiny step in this grand ride we call life.  Each one shows a piece of what we were like that year.  Each one is different, but they are all us.  Dad took pictures of us horseback one year – those are fun.  Mostly we just gather around a stump or a bale of hay, and I run back and forth from the camera to the group, clicking away.  I snap a little, but well, that’s just where I show that little teeny bit of compulsiveness that I have. 

Yup, I think I will drag the family out this week.  Its time for the annual portrait.  Maybe I will fill my pocket flask this year.  Maybe I will actually put it in my pocket!  Maybe you will see the flask in hand for the Christmas card! 

Shayla says:

I grew up posing almost yearly in front of an Olan Mills photographer. I’ve got everything from the 1970s polyester pantsuit pictures to the 1980s “I’m wearing a velour shirt and my mom tried to curl my hair and I hate it and want to die” awkward stage smile photos.

I never really understood the whole draw of family pictures until I had kids of my own.  Then it became this whole “why yes world, I DO make some beautiful children” right of passage to load them up and take them to Sears or JC Penney.

ADD Sidebar: When my two oldest were nearly three and one, I made an appointment on my husband’s day off to get our Christmas family photo taken at JC Penney. It was our worst year in regard to finances, in fact we were just short of federal poverty level, but I was bound and determined to take my $9.99 coupon and get my memory. The morning of that that ill-fated photo shoot, my daughter woke up with pink eye and my husband decided to cut his own hair with the clippers and after failing miserably shaved his head bald. Lots of people are bald. But “bald” is not particularly flattering on my husband’s pointy little head. To salvage the picture, I ran to the store and bought a cheap Santa suit that I could shove back into the box and return later and put the kids’ Christmas best back in their closets. Our little family sat in the waiting room of JC Penney with my husband dressed as Santa Claus and the kids and I all wearing pajamas. The photographer looked at me like I was nuts but I assure you it was the cutest damn picture, hiding that bald little head under a Santa hat and my daughter’s pink eye subtly looking more like a kid that just woke up Christmas morning.

Now the “in” thing to do is hire a photographer that goes with you on location and tries to capture you in your element. I’m pretty much over here thinking I don’t know what my element is.

And here is my confession of the day. With the exception of pictures taken at my daughter’s wedding last year, I have not had a professional family photo taken of my family since my youngest son was born. He will be fifteen in two weeks. (Holding my mom head in shame.) I’ve had the kids’ picture taken several times. And we have plenty of snapshots. But my own vanity has kept me from rounding the whole family up.

I’ve put on a lot of weight over the years. The older I get, the more I feel like my neck resembles Jabba the Hut, despite those camera tricks we all try like sticking our chin out or taking pictures from above. And while I feel like I want to show off my beautiful family, I kind of feel like they may not want to show off me. I’m embarrassed for them.  

So every year I vow that I will lose weight and we can have our picture taken “next year.”

Then I eat ice cream.

Maybe next year?