Cold Nights

It had never occurred to me, when I was a young bride, that there might come a day when Blue and I would spend a large amount of evenings apart. When we would text each other our good nights and sweet nothings instead of whispering them, because of distance and commitments and work and overtime. I figured once-in-awhile we'd be out with friends or have to work late, but not once did I think it would be normal for me to go about my night alone. 

We had plans to be lazy this evening. We were both having shit days and we wanted to cuddle-up and forget about the rest of the world. We wanted to forget about the people bringing us down, the stress of parenting, the city and its problems, the icy cold right outside our door. We were going to sit and enjoy each others company, joking and laughing and most-likely drooling while watching Anthony Bourdain eat some crazy street food in some far off place we'll never visit. 

Instead the city needed more time from him. And what can he say? He's a hard worker. I love that about him. I also hate that about him. 

So I got the text and my night was altered. I'm used to it by now. I'm used to getting the kids fed and bathed and off to bed by myself. Sometimes it goes well. I put on music and let them dance around the house like crazy monkeys so that when they're older they hopefully remember those times and forget how tired mommy always was. 

When the house is finally quiet and resting I take a big deep breath. I grab my glass of wine and run myself a bubble bath and go to bed early. Cold winter nights are usually the hardest. It's so dark and our bedroom is freezing. I tend to feel more alone than in the summer. 

One thing is for sure, I'm thankful for wine and bathtubs and heavy duvets and flannel pj's. 

When He's Gone

I haven't been sleeping well. There are a number of reason as to why this is going on, but one of the more unexpected ones is that I have been waking up thinking someone is on our property and breaking-in to our house. At first it's a dream but while I'm asleep I get so freaked out that I wake up thinking I'm hearing things. Sometimes they are outside, sometimes they are creeping up my stairs, but regardless of where they were in my dream and the sounds that I hear when I wake-up, my heart is racing and I'm freaked out. It takes me a long time to calm down afterwards.

When Blue is beside me it's much easier to feel safe and secure. When he's gone I feel exposed and vulnerable. I never used to feel that way.

According to the dream dictionary, one possible interpretation for my dreams is that some subconscious material is trying to make itself known. I don't know how much of that I believe. I think it's more likely that I'm now more aware of all of the crime that takes place under the cover of darkness. Maybe I'm reading too much of the news these days.

Just today I was startled awake in the early hours of the morning by my phone beeping beside my head. I groggily checked my text message, knowing it would only be from Blue. It told me that there was a break-in just a few houses down and to "keep an eye out". Well, it took me quite a long time to get to bed after that. I know Blue wanted to check-in and keep me safe, but after going to the window and scanning our yard, all I could think about was how un-safe I felt. I wanted him there, with me.

A few moments after I read the text I could hear the whir of the police chopper approaching our neighbourhood. Crime happens everywhere, in every community...but we live in a fairly sketchy one.

Maybe it's time for a dog.

The Weight

Posted by: Blue

A story from The Spectator, written by an anonymous Hamilton Police Officer.  It is well worth a read if you'd like to know what it is like to live the life of a cop.  His words (though it may just as easily have been written by a female, I'll refer to him as male, because I see myself when I read the article) are very wisely chosen and paint the exact picture of what I have been feeling weighing me down this past couple of months.

I especially like the fact that at the end, he describes how he loves his job.  I feel the same.  It has been interesting to be enveloped in this lifestyle for a few years and to look back and ask myself if I would make the same choice over again, and invariably I answer "yes".

They say that ignorance is bliss.  I often tell my partner that we as police are among the few who have had that ignorance torn from us, never to be revisited.  It is a career where we see very clearly the things which contribute to the decay of society.  We see them over and over and over again and are unable to hide in ignorance of the horror of mankind's selfishness and depravity any longer.  As the officer said in the article, we are doomed to re-live certain things over and over again.

But I am happy to be a police officer.  I am happy that I continue to find the strength to serve, despite the hatred that I feel from so many people, despite the undue scrutiny, despite the impossible standard of perfection.

I believe I am still finding my balance as a cop, even after 3 years.  I know that I swing from over-caring to apathy at times.  I like to think that I have some good role models to look-up to.  Some of them are over on the right side of this webpage, writing their own takes on this life.  Others are my peers and superiors at work.  This is a hard job to adjust to.  Trust me.  My heroes are the ones who walk the Thin Blue Line and remain balanced, somehow overcoming the tendency to become jaded and apathetic.

If you see a police officer in the next while, it really does mean a lot to us to receive a simple thank-you.  I have had people come up to me and say something like that.  It makes my day.  Cheers to you people.  You are who we do this for day after day.

Time Off with Blue

Blue just started a stretch of holidays. We thought this would be a good time for him to take a few weeks off since summer books up fast and he and I can have some down time while the kids are in school. Turns out, he's got a whole bunch of side jobs that have come up and more work needs to be done on our house ( it's never-ending actually).

Side jobs are good for us. They keep us afloat and pay for all the little extras.

We are taking two holidays, so that makes up for the craziness of the holidays at home. We are taking the kids on a little road trip for a few days and (drum roll please) Blue surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas for my 30th and our 9th anniversary!! I'm so happy to be getting away just the two of us without any children. We've never done a holiday like this before. Both of us are quite excited!

For those of you who have been, do you have any tips or places to visit for us first timers?

Growing Older

Blue turned 30 yesterday.

This morning I was sitting in bed, the was sun streaming in and the window was slightly cracked. I was listening to the birds while I sipped at my coffee. Little Blue was crawling around on the floor beside me chatting to his rubber ducky. The Boy and Waffle were downstairs watching cartoons about bugs. Blue had just fallen into bed straight off of night-shift. His breathing was already rhythmic and heavy.

I smiled to myself. Little Blue thought I was smiling at him so he gave me a big gummy grin and then went back to slobbering on the ducks head.

My days are busy and tiring, as are Blue's, but they're good. We're growing older but I don't mind so much when I look around and feel a peaceful contentment.

Different Days

It's quite the challenge, I find, to make well put-together delicious meals with a child in Kindergarten and a baby in the house. For half the day I have one ear and one eye constantly on Waffle until she's shipped off to school and the for the whole day I have the other ear and other eye on Little Blue. If I can manage to stuff something in my face for breakfast and lunch other than coffee and more coffee then we've had a successful day.

So you can imagine how disappointed I get when I go to the effort to make a nice roast or chicken only to have Blue working OT.

Last Monday I was busy preparing dinner when I got a text from Blue saying he wouldn't be home for awhile. Sigh. While I was chopping potatoes and carrots and listening to some relaxing music, Blue was across the city waiting for the Medical Examiner. An elderly gentleman had passed away in the shower while cleaning-up after bowel movement.

I was struck by how polar opposite our days have become.

Although, to be fair, I do deal with my fair share of baby poop.

My Life is Exhausting

Last night I took The Boy, Waffle and Little Blue to our church for a Maundy Thursday potluck  Between getting the ingredients and cooking the food, I had spent a few hours making a massive dish of cannelloni for everyone. Blue started a long stretch of nights so he wasn't able to come with us.

The kids have been on spring break this week. The first morning that they were off The Boy turned to me and said, "I'm bored. I want to go back to school." Keep in mind that this is coming from a kid that likes to solve math problems just for fun...I figured I better plan some good activities to keep them entertained. Blue was able to join us for most of them since he had a few days off. We went swimming, glow bowling, mini-golfing, to Ikea (the kids had never been and they thought the giant maze-like store was pretty fun), out for lunch a few times, had their friends over for play dates, sent Waffle to a friends house for her first-ever sleepover, watched a few movies and did a few crafts.

Yesterday I drove around getting the kids little things for an Easter hunt on Sunday and my food for the potluck. I was dead tired from the craziness of the week and I had a cup of coffee in my hand for the majority of the day.

It's a lot to get two kids, a baby and a dish of food out the door. Between helping set-up, wrangling kids, feeding a baby (twice), feeding kids, feeding myself, wrangling kids again and packing everything/everyone up I barely heard the message and had hardly any time to visit with friends.

By the time we got home (Little Blue screamed the entire way) I was furious with the whole evening and a few of the things the kids had done and I had to deal with it all by myself because Blue was working. I went to bed wondering why I even bother. There are a lot of moments during a lot of days where I feel like all of my efforts go completely unappreciated and unnoticed. There are stretches of days where I feel like a single parent when Blue is on shift and everything falls on my shoulders, or at least it feels that way. It's easy to look at other people and think they have it way easier or way better...and maybe they do. We knew going into this that it would be difficult.

I hope when the kids are a little bit older they're able to look back and remember all of the fun movie nights and family game nights and crafts that we did and they're able to overlook all of the times their mom was a total basket-case.

At this point in time, my life feels completely exhausting.

Ham

Blue is a very, how do I put this, particular person. He's slightly OCD and very detailed driven and I think that it is one of the reasons he's a good cop. He spent extra money to make sure all of the hangers in our house match and all of the ones in our closet sit in one direction making the clothing all facing the same way. If I have a hanger out of place, I'll hear about it! There are times where it's nice to have a husband like this and times where...well, I often thank God that he gave me a personality to be able to deal with it. You can only listen to the proper way to cut a pie or stack a burger so many times.

We had soup and sandwiches for dinner last night. I think that, for the most part, Blue is able to turn-off the obsessive personality or at least he's got enough smarts to know that he shouldn't always voice his opinion. But there are times where I can tell he wants to jump right in and show me how to do something better or more efficiently.

I made my ham sandwich and as I was picking it up a small piece of ham flopped around.

Blue: Your ham is gonna fall out.

Me: No, it's not.

Blue: Ya, it is. I saw it flop.

Me: I think it's fine. *wink*

He squared his shoulders and I laughed at him. He went about his business. I took a big bite and my ham proceeded to fall out of my sandwich and into my soup. My eyes went wide and I quickly scooped it up and shoved the whole thing into my mouth hoping he didn't see.

The worst thing when living with a particular person and is when they're proven correct in something they've tried to school you on. The best thing ever is when you end-up being correct and can put them in their 'you're not always right' place.

Well, he did see. I started laughing and he just couldn't understand why I would have made myself such a sloppy sandwich.

The (un)Usual

I often find myself laughing at how unusual our lives have become now that Blue is a police officer, but how normal the unusual now feels. I suppose it's more that Blue's life is on the crazy side of things as mine is still pretty uneventful with being a stay-at-home-mom (Although, I signed-up for a boxing class. That counts for something, right?). From time-to-time Blue's work experiences spill over into our home life through stories, texts, phone calls or random things that make it through our door. Sometimes the things are shocking and sad, sometimes they are hilarious, sometimes they are down-right frustrating but they almost always leave me thinking that Blue must have one of the most bizarre jobs out there. If only more civilians could see what police actually have to deal with.

Yesterday I was yet again reminded of the absurdity of Blue's line of work when I got a text from him later on in the day which read:

Probably some OT. Guns. Bullets. Crazy drunk Russian. The usual. 

I find it funny, and only slightly off-putting, that this is Blue's usual. 

Hurry Up and Wait

Blue has started calling me 'Preggo-Pop'

I thought that I was going into active labour last week. Blue was on a serious Motor Vehicle Collision call involving a truck and a young pedestrian. It was his unit that was escorting the girl to the hospital. Apparently his phone doesn't work too well in hospitals. My contractions were coming every 12 minutes. If I had needed him I would have had to call 911. 

Thankfully they fizzled after two hours.

We are still here and still waiting.

Hair

At the breakfast table today:

CB: Can we do a #2 and a #4 this time? I feel like I kinda botched the last cut with the #1 and #3.

Blue: Ya...you kinda did.

Blue has been asking me for a haircut for a few days now. Between him asking at inopportune times (don't ask a ready-to-pop pregnant lady to get-up and cut hair right after she's snuggled-up in bed for an afternoon nap...it's not happening!) and me putting it off for fear of messing it up it just hadn't happened.

I always cut Blue's hair. I've done it for quite awhile, but since becoming a cop he is very particular about how his hair is. Last time he decided to go a bit shorter than normal and, well, the shorter the hair the more noticeable the mistakes.

He showed-up to work and was made fun of for his totally goofy hair. Don't worry, I ended-up fixing it.

I normally get a bit nervous cutting his hair because the man is slightly OCD. Now I'm even more nervous because he'll head into the station and potentially be laughed at (all in good fun, of course). However, he agreed to switch back to the #2 and #4 which has calmed my nerves. It looks much better, but that's just my opinion.

Do any of you other police wives cut your officers hair?

Breathe in, 2, 3, 4...

Baby Blue can come any day now. Actually, it would be perfect for Baby Blue to decide to enter the world right now as Blue doesn't go back to work until Monday. So I'm sitting here blogging and drinking my Raspberry Leaf Tea and seeing if I can get something going.

But then that will stop on Monday and I'll hold my breath until Blue is off shift again.

Here's the problem with being married to a Police Officer, they aren't always accessible. And that's normally not a problem at all, except when I'm about to go into labour. This is the single most stressful thing on my plate right now. I'm not all that worried about what will happen when I get to the birth centre and am with my midwife, but it's the not knowing when it will happen and where Blue will be and if he'll be involved in a high-risk something-or-other right when I need him.

So I have a back-up, and then another back-up and a couple more back-ups after that. We only have one vehicle and Blue has to take it to work. So what if I'm at home, with my two kids and baby decides to come while Blue is at work? Well, I'll call one of my back-ups and hope that Blue isn't in the process of arresting someone. Not a big deal, right? Well, here's the thing, this is my third. Waffle only took 4.5 hours to make her grand entrance into the world and they say (whoever 'they' is) to halve your labours with every child. My midwife even asked, raised eyebrows and all, how quickly I can get to the centre once things start moving. It's only 15 minutes away, but if Blue is at work and I'm at home and I have to wait for someone to get to my house to pick the kids and I up then how much time will that take? I don't know.

This is where my composure crumbles and I start to stress. I'm sure everything will be fine and, if anything, I can always have the baby in an ambulance right outside my front door like my friend did last month.

Blue isn't concerned in the least bit. He's got a car with lights and sirens and doesn't have to abide by traffic rules and speed limits...

I will admit that it would be pretty cute for Baby Blue's first family picture to be with Blue in his uniform, but I'm not going to be upset if I go into labour when we're all relaxed and together at home.

...thanks?

I took the kids to a birthday party yesterday afternoon.

I always get a bit nervous meeting new people as I can be quite shy at first, but it's a lot easier when you're chatting with someone who's kids are in the same class at school as there is at least some common ground; teachers, activities, friends, kids are the same age and probably into the same things. While Waffle and The Boy were glow bowling I struck-up a conversation with some of the other mom's. It went well, but I find that pregnancy always brings out the most bizarre comments from people. They say things to your face that, normally, wouldn't be the least bit appropriate to mutter even under your breath as you walk away. Comments like "You're huge!" or "How many are in there?" or "Wow, you're really waddling now!" or "You're still here!?" Granted, there are the good comments from people as well, but it's always the slightly off-colour ones that stick.

Other Mom: So when are you due?

CB: Oh, in a few weeks.

Other Mom: Ya, you look it.

Awkward pause

(What do I say to that!? Thanks? "Gee, thanks for pointing out that I'm waddling like a preggo-potamus and my clothes are having a hard time stretching enough to cover my very pregnant belly! So kind of you.")

CB: Haha, well, I'm definitely feeling it alright!

Aaaaaand, change subject.