The upsides of night shifts

Its been a long couple weeks here, and actually its been a long couple of months here, with the mister on night shift plus fall hunting starting up. In actual fact he's nearing the end of a 6 month stretch on night shift, where he's left at either 5 or 7 in the evening, to return shortly before 5 of 7 in the morning. I've only noticed it being especially hard since he went back to work at the end of June after Baby E was born, and more-so since hunting started at the beginning of September; before Baby E came, when it was just me and Little M, it was more do-able. Needless to say I'm looking forward to next month when he starts on day shift (during the week, with both weekend days off with us no less!). I've actually been writing a post about how I feel about this whole night shift process, which I may share next week sometime if I can manage to get it a bit more coherent :)

In the meantime, I needed a pick me up, and decided to write a post about the things I love about this schedule, with him leaving at 7 every evening, getting home just before 7 in the morning, and working mid week through the weekend. So, here goes, what I've been loving...

• evenings with just me and the girls that are incredibly low key. I mean, he leaves at 7, and we can just start getting Little M ready for bed if we want, including a long bath, bedtime snack, bedtime story, brushing teeth, going potty, bedtime songs, getting tucked in, the whole bit.
• evenings with just me and the girls that are more active. When it was still light until easily 8, we would go for walks down the road shortly after the mister left for work. That was fun.
• now that it's dark about when he leaves, lighting a candle on the table and having the flickering light and nice smell in the main room. Even better - having my twinkle star lights in the kitchen window turned on as well.
• having the whole bed to myself (and Baby E) almost every night. Ah, stretching out space how I am going to miss you once all three of us are in the bed every night come day shift next month!
• friday afternoon walks with Baby E along the block and a half of back alleys between my work and Little M's 'new daycare' where she goes once a week right now, and the subsequent errands around town that the three of us girls do to productively waste more time between daycare pickup and the mister's wake up time of 5 o'clock.
• having one or two mornings a week of breakfasts as a family when we wake up about when he gets home and he stays up a bit to hang out with us.
• dashing down to the garden for a brief mama interlude for a few minutes some time between 5 and 7 on the nights where he actually wakes up at 5, supper doesn't take too long for me to make, Baby E isn't too fussy, and it isn't too smoking hot outside at that time of the day.
• the couple of days where he has had some hunting or fishing stuff going on right after work so hasn't gotten home and to bed until mid day or later on his last shift for the week, when that we can be as loud and productive as we want all morning.
• needing only 3 days a week of daycare for Little M, as he is (somewhat) awake and able to be with her during the day the other 2 days a week.
• having supper with him, where he is at least present at the table if not always particularly interested in eating a full meal, every night of the week.
• having limited daily dog chores myself as most mornings and basically every evening he is in charge of feeding them and letting them out.

Ok, well that's all I can think of right now, but this will serve as a great reminder for myself come January when he starts back on night shift, of what positives to focus on to help me start the next 6 months off right :) I think it is helpful to focus on the positives, because then it's them that I remember. Clearly our lives are full of both good things and bad things, but thinking about the past positives makes me a happier person than remembering the past negatives!

A car crashed next door

Yesterday evening, while waiting for my husband to arrive home from a bit of overtime after his regular shift, Little M and I noticed a small pickup in the alfalfa field next door. I thought it was strange, as there was a guy standing up in the back, and through binoculars I noticed they seemed to be looking up the hill towards the road at something. There were a couple trees in my view, but I didn't see anything on the road, so figured maybe it was a deer or something. I kept my eye on them as they backed out, but then my husband pulled into the driveway and I didn't think anything more of it.

A half hour to an hour later, I was walking back up from the garden, and realized what they must have been looking at. There was a car over the edge on the hill! The driver must have veered off the narrow road and went straight down the hill until the nose of the car got stuck in the bottom of the old irrigation ditch. I ran up to the house and got my husband to call in to dispatch and make sure someone had already called the car in. No one had. So my husband walked over and checked to make sure no one was hurt inside - it was empty and locked, so whoever was driving it had crashed, then locked their vehicle up and left the scene. My husband decided he was going to wait over there until first responders arrived.

Little M and I got loaded up into the stroller and headed down the road to see what was happening. While we were walking down, Fire & Rescue showed up. The first guy on scene made sure that the car wasn't going to start a fire and checked the damage. A couple other fire & rescue guys showed up and kept an eye on things.

You can see the car down the hill, but this picture also shows where the car went off the road, you can see the flattened weeds on its path from the left corner and down into the center of the picture. Scary ride or what!

Then two police units from the nearest town showed up to keep an eye on things (and chit-chat with my husband) until the county deputy made it up. Fire moved on once they established that no one was inside & the car wasn't a danger to the tow truck or any one else. Then the cops all waited for the tow truck to arrive, after having an involved discussion about whether a normal wrecker would be enough or if they would need the bigger vehicle to get the car up the hill since there wasn't anywhere to tie the smaller wrecker off to. While they were waiting Little M and I headed back to the house to get her down to bed, as it was definitely after her bedtime already. Once the tow truck arrived the town cops headed back into town, and the tow truck started the process of attaching to the crashed car and pulling it up.

I didn't get any pictures of the car coming up the hill as it was getting fairly dark by then. But they did get it up and towed away successfully.

I can't imagine the ride down the hill - how scary that must have been. It's pretty likely that the driver was under the influence, and may not really have registered what was happening. Since we moved in here I've always worried that one day I would look out in the winter and there would be a car off the road down that hill, as the road is quite narrow and really has no shoulders at all before you are straight down over the edge. I never thought it would be in broad daylight in the middle of summer! Luckily it doesn't seem like anyone was hurt, so it seems that it all ended well.

We rarely see emergency services actually responding to a scene up our road (we do see emergency vehicles more regularly, but typically they are just dropping by to say hi!), and it definitely caused a bit of commotion with our neighbors. We met our soon-to-move-in new neighbors up the road as we were waiting for the tow truck to arrive, and another neighbor dropped by the house while I was putting Little M down to bed & the tow truck was pulling the car up. Apparently another neighbor just up the road had visitors arrive who mentioned driving by the scene, so she called the other neighbor, who came down to see if I knew what was going on. I know this makes it seem like there are a lot of people further up our road, but in reality there are only 6 full time places and a couple of cabins up past us.

I love that we have great neighbors around us, and that we know them well enough that they aren't shy to stop by after 9 at night to make sure things are ok & get the gossip :) Knowing my neighbors, and having everyone know everyone else's business is very familiar to me - after all I grew up on a dead end dirt road in a very rural area of Ontario. I love that even moving across the country and down into the US, I've still found a place like this where I know my neighbors for a good ways around on all sides.

On being a cop's wife

I had another post planned, but last night after my husband was called back out, I started writing this post in my head, so I figured I might as well go ahead and write it here & share it with you. You may not know, but my husband is a cop. There, I said it. Now please, don't look at me with those eyes, I'm still the person you thought I was before you found out. And please don't be nice to me just in the hopes he will be then be more lenient towards you.

Luckily I haven't intimately faced those eyes, those nice people. But it happens. Even, and especially, here in our small valley. Here, where I should likely have titled this post 'on being THE cop's wife'. In a small valley where there are only a handful or so officers, and even fewer with wives, I find everyone knows who I am, even when I have no clue who they are.

But enough of that. I meant to write about him. My husband. My cop. Your cop. Because that's what he is. Yesterday he worked a ten hour day, came home almost an hour late, making it almost an eleven hour day, and then before he had been home an hour he was gone again, called back out. Gone before he had time to do much more than eat the dinner leftovers I had saved for him and put away the dishes from the dishwasher. Gone before he had time to take the compost & garbage out, or hang the diapers up to dry.

He is the reason why it is so good that I have a job with flexible hours. If I go in to work a bit later than normal today because I stayed up late doing his chores last night, and stayed home a little extra this morning to play with Little M while he sleeps in since he didn't get back home until hours later, no one will notice and they certainly won't care. His schedule is also the reason why Little M only has to go a couple days a week to daycare. There are definitely mixed blessings that come along with his job, and these few I mention aren't really even scratching the surface of the important stuff.

He went out last night, lights flashing down our little valley before he dipped down out of sight before making the turn to go up-valley and to his town, to respond to some stranger who needed a bit of extra help. I don't begrudge them this, this evening with him, what was supposed to be our relaxed evening in the midst of several weeks filled with dealing with the rental, because while I have never been threatened with serious violence, I can imagine what it would be like.

And knowing that he is going into harms way to help someone else who might not be able to defend themself makes me proud. He does this job without getting much in the way of thanks besides the obvious paycheck & health care benefits. And he certainly gets more than his fair share of complaints, attitude, dirty looks, and cold shoulders. But being a cop is all he has ever wanted to be. And even through the hard times, it is what he wants to keep doing.

I, and we, are fortunate that all I have ever known from him is the cops life. When we first met just over 3 years ago he had already been working here for several years. I can't imagine what it would be like to see someone transform from the person they were, into the person they become when they start dealing with the things these guys (and gals) deal with. Not that they become anything scary or bad, quite the opposite, and just different.

I'm sure it helps that I've never had a bad experience with police officers. I still have fond recollections of the constable who used to come teach school bus safety at the elementary school I went to when I was young. Maybe it's more of a Canadian thing too, to not have had the 'anti-police' thing drilled into me. Or maybe it's just because I was a good kid and never really toed the line. Either way, I'm glad, because it let me start dating him without prejudice getting in my way.

I'm glad that the bits of the job that come home with him, the always being aware of expired tabs when we are on road trips, the never sitting with his back to the entrance at a restaurant, are to me normal - all I've ever known from him. I think it makes day to day life that much more bearable and enjoyable. He is who he is now, and I choose to be proud of that. Proud to call him my husband. Proud to be a cop's wife.