The Wife I Am

Most of ya'll probably know I am married man who just happens to be a police officer.  The fact that he married me is almost as shocking as him being a police officer. I would've never seen that when we were in high school!  A while ago I asked him if it would be okay if I wrote about his profession, and he said it was.  This is less about him, though, and more about what it's like for the rest of us.

When we were all younger and less wise, police officers were those people to be avoided.  They gave you tickets for speeding and took you "downtown" when you got caught rolling people's homes in the middle of the night.  (Not that I did that, but my favorite "associates" might have...)  They were intimidating and you avoided them like the plague.  Some people still think of them this way:  Scary, mean, not to be trusted.

I wonder what it is like to be married to someone who works 9-5 Monday through Friday...what it's like to have every weekend free...how it would be to eat dinner as a family each night.  I wonder if life would be different if we had to share a bathroom each morning before beginning our days...or got into bed together to wind down and talk about how the day had gone.

There are many nights he is late getting in, or at least later than I expect.  He usually won't leave until all his shift is in and accounted for, so there's never a "usual" time.  It might be he needs to talk to the shift coming on, or maybe there's paperwork. Whatever it may be, there is usually little time to call me. Not because he doesn't care, but because his responsibility lies elsewhere at that moment.

Whenever this happens, which can be often, I find myself going through my usual thought process:  If he's in trouble, which grandparents do I call if I have to go to the hospital?  What if they're not home?  How fast can I get there?  Can the kids stay in the waiting room?  What if I have to decide if they should go in?  What if he doesn't come home?  Can I raise these kids alone?  Surely God wouldn't ever do this, right?  This is my depressing,  yet necessary, train of thought.

He misses soccer games and school programs.  He has to go out at odd hours sometimes and I'm not sure when he'll be home.  I do a lot of our parenting alone when he is at work.  It's difficult at best to swing between being a one-parent home and a two-parent home.  Add in three kids, and I am waaayyy out-numbered.  

You get used to doing it by yourself and all of a sudden there's another parent in the mix. Shifting between the two is challenging.  It's harder still to get back into the groove of being a couple when you literally haven't seen each other in five days other than a quick good-bye in the hallway.  

Being married to him means I'm not as innocent and trusting as I used to be. I've always been a chicken, but now I'm a paranoid chicken.  Everyone is a potential carjacker/murderer/rapist.  When the house creaks, it's obviously Jack the Ripper coming through the door.  It couldn't be, oh, the house just creaking or anything, ya know, logical.

In short, the person I am has been directly shaped by the person he is and the job he lives.  It colors our family's lives and our friendships.  It has woven itself into everything about us.  It's a different life, but it's mine.

Well-behaved Women and all that...Rewriting History

There's the old internet favorite quote about well-behaved women seldom making history.  Apparently you gotta break the rules to rewrite the history books.  I would bet that women who are not well-behaved as adults were probably not all that well-behaved as children....that's my assumption, of course.  Maybe they were perfect angels and life somehow altered them in a way that changed their perfect demeanor.  Who knows?  Maybe they were just born to raise hell...

My youngest was christened with the nickname Hurricane because this is generally how she tears through life.  The last 20 words I've uttered, after making sure my mother was going to trim my Crepe Myrtles so that I didn't butcher them, have been (in no particular order) "Stop!"  "1-2-don't make me say 3!" "Get away from the spider-infested playhouse!" "Go wrestle with your dad!!!"  If you followed me around with a recorder, this is my daily mantra. Some people have om; I have "So help me God!"

I know people judge me when they see her sometimes-well-maybe-alot of questionable behavior.  Truly, I feel bad because they think she is a heathen and undisciplined.  Some of it is pity for myself, but more so for her. She is a hard child to parent because to try to reign her in would only cause her to fight more.

I admit I have added to it.  When people have asked how she is, I respond, "If she'd been first, she'd been last."  However, that is possibly the truth. This girl is a work-out 24-7.  There is no downtime for her, which means no downtime for us.  As much as I delight in her, there are days when I wish for a kid who would go play quietly with some dolls or trucks or crayons or something...just something.  

But.  

She is so golden and pure and good.  There is a light within her that is unlike anything I have ever encountered.  She is fearless and full of wisdom.  She is a teller of the truth, even when it wounds those who need to hear it.

Recently she was holding up the bathroom line at preschool.  Her teacher was concerned she was taking a bit too long to take care of business, so she gently opened the door to check on her.  There she was, drawers at her ankles on the pot with her chubby four-year-old hands clasped in prayer.  The teacher, who knows and loves her, gently asked who she was praying for, she responded her grandpa needed some extra prayers that day.  The teacher let her finish her business (both toiletry and prayers) and she moved on with her life for the day.  

She can tell you where President Andrew Johnson is buried and much about his life.  She knows that the leaves are turning colors and falling because the chlorophyll is leaving them.  And, yes, she uses the word chlorophyll.  She understands how echos work.  She is amazing.

I know that raising her will be a challenge.   She is going to test every boundary we and society set for her. She will test her teachers and try their patience.  But she is going to be a freaking mind-blowing adult.  I believe she will embrace every hurdle life hands her. She will stomp through life willing everyone to live as fiercely as she does.  And I think they will.  

"And though she be but little, she is fierce."  Right on, Shakespeare...right on.

A Ninja...My Marketing Plan

I'm still working on separating my work-self from my mom-self from my adult-self and so on.  Most days I struggle with what is appropriate where and when and if I've embarrassed my children or my parents or my husband.  I constantly question if I've committed career suicide with my lack of filter.  Sheesh, it's exhausting and that's before I've actually done anything most of the time (hey, thanks, anxiety!)

We had a tech conference today that was amazing in a million ways, but one part has me struggling:  Marketing ourselves in tomorrow's world.  (Hey, it ain't about today: We're past that and the sun hasn't set!)  One presenter, who was great in what he is doing, talked about teaching our kids how to market themselves for the world in which they will live and compete for jobs. Wow...how could I market my 10-year old? If he changes by the time he applies for his first job, will they sue me for false advertising?

I am guilty as all get-out when it comes to getting excited about new tech stuff and all the amazing and wonderbar things we can do in classrooms.  Sometimes, though, does the excitement and hurrah about the "next" great thing override the moment in which we live?  I'm excited about the cool things my kids will be able to do one day while I sit on the couch with glazed eyes and nod my head with no clue as to what they are doing.  They will experience the same feeling I had when I tried to show my mom how to use iTunes for the 143,687th time. (Practice makes perfect!)  It's part of the changing of the guard, I guess.  I just don't know that I want her tweeting my picture with some snarky comment to pay me back for that mullet in Pre-K.

For now, my marketing plan is to be a ninja.  I figure since they are trained in the ways of espionage (now I'm singing Charlie Daniels the rest of the day...go youtube it, you know you want to), that would work.  I can change my mind each day depending on my particular assignment.  I can wear all black so these last 10 pounds won't matter so much.  I can carry a large sword to poke anyone brave enough to challenge my designated marketing plan.  I seem to think, also, they wear shoes that resemble Toms.  That should work for me.

There ya go...BreatheChick Ninja.