COPS

Why is it that when things go wrong...they go REALLY wrong and when things go right they go REALLY right? Why can't life just play me a happy medium?

Anyway, I am not going to complain about our most recent REALLY good and that was Matt getting on with the Helena PD. So bring on all the pig and doughnut jabs!

You've worked so hard for this Matt and I am so thankful for all you have done to get here. No one has been better prepared for this job than you. You could be anything you want but I can just see you excelling in this occupation so easily. You are smart and even tempered, you work well with people yet are fierce when you need to be. You have always had a sense of duty to your God, your family, your country, and your community. I'm just so thankful to be married to a man that our boys can look up to.

Ahg, I feel like we can finally take a deep breath and relax for a moment. In your honor I put my favorite song by The Police on here.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! I love you.

this week...

I'm beginning to appreciate the fact that sometimes the best opinions....are the ones left unshared.

Grateful

Yesterday, despite the stresses of our lives (which seem to be many these days) I sat back and reflected how I had seen the Lord's hand in my life. It was then that I was overwhelmingly grateful to be married to a man who continually finds the courage to stand for what he believes in, even against those perhaps he loves the most. To my shame, sometimes against me. Sometimes against family. Sometimes against people he's never met before. On a consistent basis I have witnessed him choose to be the change he wants to see in this world. And because he is imperfect I feel that is what makes him the most valuable because he's seen, as I have, what excitements sin can hold, yet he still strives to hold on to the changes he has made and do what is right.

Parents are correct when they say that their children "just won't listen." They don't....They watch. How grateful I am this day for the example Matt sets for our children and for me.

Why The Doc Gets A Bad Rep

Everywhere around the world at this specific moment and time, hundreds of kids are going through the same, all-time traumatic event in their lives. Kindergarten shots. I remember this day so well…..

My mom packed us all up in the car to go to the doctor. Not so bad I think. We play doctor all the time at my house with our play stethoscope. Camille checks my heart and I get a lollypop. Not a bad thing right? …. So, so wrong!

I remember distinctly sitting on a stool in the middle of a room all by myself with the nurse. There I was, minding my own business, looking away from her at all the great stuff they had in their office to get into when all the sudden I felt the shot go into my finger. My head whips around to see nothing in her hands and a stapler on the counter! I start screaming “SHE STAPLED MY FINGER! SHE STAPLED MY FINGER!!!”

It wasn’t till years later when I witnessed almost the exact same course of events with my friend Jolene, that I realized the nurses kept a small finger stabber (that’s the scientific name) in their lab coat pocket for blood samples. She slipped it out and right back in again before I even knew what was coming. And that was just the prick to get a blood sample, the shots hadn’t even come yet and I’m already in full FREAK out mode! In the end it took three nurses to hold me down.
…And everyone wonders why we have such an innate fear of doctors!! BECAUSE THEY HOLD YOU DOWN AND POKE YOU TIL YOU BLEED!

…Now of course I didn’t say that to my son when we got ready to go the other day. Can you imagine that? “Jake we are going to the doctor today and they are gonna hold you down and poke you til you bleed….but it will be ok.” Ha! This is why mothers are diplomats. I did however try to be as candid as possible. I told him where we were going and what was going to happen. I told him about the shots and that they would hurt a little but it would be for just a moment and then after he could pick out any toy he wanted in walmart, within reason…

He surprisingly was great with that and marched right into the doctor's office proclaiming loudly what he was there for and what he was going to get for it! I was so proud. Then the nurses bring in the shots and he looks at the tray…..and he looks at me…..and his eyes get big and all the sudden he is his mother’s son. He still sat there bravely for the first one just leaning away a little bit but unable to take his eyes off the shots, like a bug attracted to the light. But as soon as she broke skin he was screaming bloody murder! I had Sammy in my lap (not even thinking before hand that he might be scared from seeing this) so I set him down on the chair and he curls into the fetal position with his eyes shut tight and his hands over his little ears while I go to help the nurses.

Now heaven help me but we had to have the new nurse who was just giving her first set of children’s shots on my son. Yeeeeah. Luckily she still had her trainer in there with her who was talking her through it all but when Jake started screaming, she just froze like a deer in the headlights. Plus to top it off, he had worked himself up so much that his nose started to bleed, and my son is not given to nose bleeds so this was pretty traumatic for him. It was so sad.

But being the tough love mom that I am, I take the reins on this operation. I grab some tissue for Jake to hold up to his nose and force him to lie down. I use my arms and chest to pin the lower half of his body to the table and tell the trainer to brace his arm. Then I look up at the trainee whose shaking with the next shot in hand (3 more to go) and tell her to “JUST DO IT!”
She’s still kinda frozen like she doesn’t know if that’s the best idea and I feel like slapping her across the face and shaking her by the shoulders “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAN!” I wondered for a moment if I looked cruel in her eyes. That maybe she thinks I should let him take a brake and calm down. But I know my son and I’m 100% positive that if I let him go, he would have run right out of there and neither hell nor high water would have stopped him. It’s best just to get it over with. So she does. And it is all over.

I scoop Jake up and hold him til he stops crying then scoop Sammy up in the other arm and walk out of there knowing full well I’m never going to get either of them to come back there without the crippling fear all coming back to them. We drove to Walmart which gave me time to finally unwind and let it all sink in. Having to hold my son down for all of that was so hard for me but I knew it had to be done. Before we went in I pulled Jake up into the driver seat with me and just held him and cried. I felt so bad. Poor kiddo. I can only hope that he won’t remember that day as well as I remember mine. I know he will though cause he holds up the toy dragon he got and recounts the story of how he earned it to anyone that will listen.

I KNOW you all have some great doctor stories....

Something Wicked This Way Comes....

I Suck At...

We spend so much time on these blogs making ourselves look good. “look at all the great things MY family does!” “Look at how great I look in this picture!” “Look at all my accomplishments!” Granted, we like to share the happy things in our lives. Someone once said that we only take pictures of the happy moments and that’s therefore what we document, but it all just gives me a head ache sometimes. So, in honor of my mood today, this blog is dedicated to my worst recent failure...

Last year I played softball for a team associated with my work. It was really fun but by the end of the season I remember saying to myself that I didn’t want to do it again next year for a few reasons. First, because it was a LONG season. The entire summer to be exact, and with a game every week it got a little old. Second, because I’d have a mini heart attack before each game just anticipating the pressures that come from others watching you and depending on you. ….oh, and also because I can’t play softball to save my life!

Sure I played in high school a couple years but I remember not liking it very much and half way into the third year I just had “too much on my plate” and quit. (Pssh! Whatever that means for a 16 year old. I probably just wasn’t getting enough mack time with my boyfriend. Ya know with all that school crap getting in the way). I remember slamming a homerun right out to center field one game and thinking…. “This is never gonna happen again. I’m totally quitting after this. Go out on an up note!” I’m such an optimist it kills me.

Anyway, back to the story. So after deciding definitely NOT to play again this year… I sign up to play again this year. Haha. Wow Amie, way to stick to your guns! I totally got suckered into playing though with a team from my church. …..they said “hey amie, come play,” and I said “um, ok.” …Aaaand this is why I have tons of Mary Kay makeup in my bathroom that I never use! I’m just a sucker for a sob story! Can you imagine what would have happened if they’d have said “amie, we really need you”? I probably would have sponsored the freaken team, with money I don’t have!

Anyway, as it turns out I’m thinking maybe I should have grown that backbone and said no because we SUCK. We lose EVERY GAME! And I’m sure you’re saying to yourselves “aww amie it can’t be THAT bad. These other teams must just know their stuff really well and practice. “ ….NOPE! They’re overweight office geeks, that are most of the time drunk off their asses, just happy to be out there doin something other than push that pencil. Ya….we suck. Wanna know the best part about it? …I play right field. Guess where they put the crappiest player on the team? Right field. Awesome. I’m like the lowest on the totem pole. No! LOWER! I’m like the stake in the ground that grounds the totem pole! It’s just so sad that all I can do is laugh about it. It really is ridiculous.

Whenever I start to get down about it I just keep thinking about what my good friend Joe Dirt says. “You can’t have ‘no’ in your heart.” … That and... there HAS to be a bottom somewhere right? There has to be someone out there that makes everyone else feel better about themselves. Someone they can compare to and say “ya, I missed a few out there, but at least I wasn’t picking dandy lions out with amie in right field!"

Everyone serves their purposes, and in softball…this must be mine, and I’ve accepted that much. But should there ever come a day that I don’t strike out and by some miracle hit one out of the park....well I’m gonna run myself right over home plate and then run myself right on outta there because that’s as good as it gets people!

I’d like you to take a moment just to share something that you aren’t so good at. I’m not saying we shouldn’t focus on the positive, I’m just sayin keep it real. Anything else is making me nauseous right now. My other blog included. In fact that’s probably why I haven’t posted much on that blog lately. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll feel differently. But I’m a woman! What more excuse do you need to be fickle? Besides, I think that sharing our realities can be very therapeutic. So…I SUCK at softball, most of the time my house is a mess, and my 3 year old son recently took a dump in our back yard in broad daylight! Ha! BEAT THAT!

Too Early For Rapists

So matt and I have been talking a lot about gun safety. Not only because if he gets hired on with the police force he will be carrying a gun even in civilian clothes, but because we’ve recently doubled our arsenal by looking after some guns for Matt’s brother. We talk about where’s the best place to keep them. How to teach our boys about them etc.

We also like to talk about a lot of “what if” situations to be prepared incase of an intruder in our home. Wheres the best place to position yourself. Which gun to grab. What to do if they have one of the boys. You know. FYI- don’t for any reason sneak into my home to surprise me. I’ve been taught to pull the trigger till there’s nothing left.
Anyway, talking about these scenarios, like we did last night, always gets me a little jumpy for a few days after. Prone to overreaction. It’s like watching a scary movie that you know is fake but when you’re taking the trash out that night you still run a little bit when you’re coming back inside.

Well this morning I’m home alone (Matt’s at work) and I’d just sent two rambunctious lion cubs, who like to practice their pouncing techniques on a sleeping mama lion, downstairs to watch some Popeye while I throw my hair up and go drag in a deer for them to gnaw on. My head is still on the pillow when the doorbell rings. My eyes pop wide and I freeze while quickly scanning in my head some wave of stupidity to schedule visiting teaching this early or watch someone’s kids for them…. Nope. Drawing a blank.

I kid you not the first sentence that pops into my head is….”Surely it’s too early for rapists.” ……This is why I don’t say most my thoughts aloud. But I’m in a jam because my little lions are bound to come up the stairs with feathers hanging out of their mouths cause I took too long with the deer, and then my intruder could easily tell someone was home. …..plus, the curiosity was killing me!

So I grab my 357 just as a precaution and creep towards the door. Through the peephole I can see that no one is there but there’s a big ‘ol bowl of candy on the front railing. “…damn robbers must have done their homework! How else would they know my weakness? Well I won’t fall for it! I won’t!” And just as I’m renewing my willpower my eye slams into the peephole cause someone is now banging on the backdoor and I jumped out of surprise!

That gave it away though because there’s only one person I know with the audacity to bang on all the doors of my house and shamelessly peak in all the windows to be SURE that no one is home… and that’s a eight year old neighbor boy named Jamie. Apparently he had made a May basket for Jake and wanted to give it to him before he left for school. Well, before any half-mast eyelid was even THINKING about school to be honest. Sigh.

Anyway, those were the events of my morning. No rapists or robbers today. Just an 8 year old boy without a brain. Later he and I are taking a trip to OZ to see about that.