Back From The Dead

I have to preface this blog with a big apology: I am so sorry I fell off the face of the earth for seven months. As you can guess these months have been a hellish roller coaster ride for me, but I didn't write about it. Even despite all the caring and generous support I have gotten from the wonderful LEO ladies who read my blog, I just had to walk away from this blog for a while. I don't know why. Mostly it was a lack of time, which I'll get into later. And partly it was from feeling totally lost and just trying to focus on other goals. So why am I back here now? Because, for the first time in seven months, I actually have some good news to report!

But first, the past seven months of our lives deserve some explanation:

After JT got fired, we quickly realized we would not be able to afford our expensive apartment. We broke our lease and moved in with my parents. They were very generous to us, and gave us their master bedroom which was big enough to fit the baby's furniture in too. They gave us so much help with our little Youngling, and so much patience and compassion. But it starts to wear on everybody after a while. We lived there for almost six months.



JT was not happy. Actually he was spiraling down into a serious depression and wasn't himself at all. He was changing the whole orientation of his life. He was used to his identity as an LEO and police recruit, and used to being the provider for us. Then suddenly he was telling me to quit school and get a full time job. He went back to school himself for a few months, hoping to get closer to getting his bachelor's. For a while he decided to leave law enforcement forever and become a physician's assistant. This path would have taken him five or six years at least but he felt like it was the only way he could make the kind of money he wanted to make and do the kind of job he wanted to do. He drove a long way to a community college twice a week and took English, Psychology, and Algebra. He excelled in his classes for the short time that he was there.

JT got a job working graveyard shifts on-call at a hospital as an EMT, and this gave him back some of his sense of self worth as he performed CPR on emergency room patients and helped save their lives. As difficult as it is collecting human waste and doing catheters and such, JT likes that job.



I did not quit school. I knew it was not a good idea for me to quit school when I was within a year of finishing my master's. Instead I pushed my own graduation date up a semester and took on a heavier course load to finish quicker. I continued to work part-time at the library, but continued to search desperately for full-time library jobs. I applied for some, but was mostly rejected, or just didn't hear back. Without my degree there isn't much I can do. I worked very hard on school. That's another reason I couldn't blog at all--because I have a guilt complex that comes up any time I set aside studying for something else. I can't do it. I have to do my schoolwork, first and foremost. This got very difficult, because even in spite of all the help my parents were giving me, it wasn't enough. I just had that much work to do. On top of my homework, tests, lectures and readings, I had to write fourteen papers on different topics in library science and put it all into a website of my own creation, as part of a kind of "culminating experience" project to make me eligible for graduation. So I started bringing Jedi Youngling over to JT's parents once a week. They'd play with her all day and I would study all day, and I actually started getting more done.



Jedi Youngling was the only one of us who flourished during this difficult period. She had so much family around, and developed really strong bonds to her grandfather on my side and her grandma on JT's. In addition to grandparents she had aunties around often and they and their friends lavished tons of attention on her. She learned to stand, walk, clap her hands, and do so many other things while she was at my parents' house. She turned one year old, and we threw a huge birthday party for her at the park. Lots of my friends and coworkers were there and they gave her beautiful clothes and toys. All things considered, she was doing pretty well.

But she wasn't sleeping on her own anymore. JT had started bringing her to our bed to sleep and this formed a new and dangerous habit. Personally, I'm not a believer in cosleeping. I think there's enough research that shows babies sleep better when they can wake up at night and self-soothe and be back to sleep in minutes. When you let your baby sleep with you, she doesn't learn that skill. JY used to know how to do that but pretty soon became reliant on mommy and daddy being with her. I insisted to JT that her doctor said this was not a good idea. But it quickly got to where she wouldn't sleep on her own and we had to bring her to bed just to stop her crying.

All of this was very difficult on our marriage. Between the graveyard shifts, the parents down the hall and the baby who rarely slept in her own bed, we were not able to find much time for intimacy or togetherness. Just when we needed most to support each other and grow together, we hardly ever found a chance.

After applying for the 10th library job with no interview, and after things became more tense with my parents, I broke down and begged JT's dad to talk to him and do something to help us. He did--he talked to JT and he wore down some of JT's resistance to getting other jobs and getting us out of my parents'. He also talked to the chief of police for his city, and that chief of police was one amazingly smart guy.

He went to a convention where all the chiefs from all the cities in SoCal were gathered, and walked right up to a table where he knew one chief was hiring and another chief sitting at that table happened to be one of JT's former employers. He said, "Hey, you're hiring for a temporary jailer right? I know a guy who would fit the job description." And he proceeded to tell them about JT. Suddenly JT's former employer perks up, and says, "Oh, that guy used to work for me! Yeah, he was the best! I'd hire him back if I could, but we don't have the budget right now."

So I'm sure you can guess what happened next: after hearing glowing recommendations from these two police chiefs, the hiring chief of police at this other department gave JT a call. Within a few weeks, he was the temporary jailer there, and was getting full-time hours while training.

There was an opening there for a permanent full-time jailer, and JT was invited to apply. About a hundred other guys applied, including some guys that were former employees with that department. We weren't sure what would happen there, but we decided to go ahead and move out of my parents'. We took a leap of faith. We found a really nice little house (a duplex) in a city in the Inland Empire that's farther for JT's work but a good commute to mine. And JT loves this area--he wanted to live here because it's very safe.

We moved here a few weeks ago. There are still lots of things we're looking for and haven't found yet. But we have our own home again and after getting through the hectic move, we're starting to relax and mellow out again. JT left school, and was happy to do so to work at a police department again. His sense of self returned to him. We both took pride making our new home nice. We celebrated both our birthdays recently and I made him a sign in big letters: "Happy Birthday to a World Champ Dad!" (I wrote it in orange because JT is a Giants fan and they won the world series.)

As could be expected, Jedi Youngling wasn't totally happy about the move at first. She would freak out every time we laid her down to change her diaper, probably frightened by the high pointed ceiling in her room. I started reading a great book to help me get her back to sleeping in her crib, Sleeping Through The Night by Jodi Mindell, Ph.D. I started her on a new bedtime routine which involved bathing her, changing her into pajamas, reading to her, singing and rocking her, and putting her in her crib and walking away. She naturally resisted at first, and I had to let her cry but checked on her every few minutes. But it got better, and for the past week she has slept in her own crib and has not awakened once during the night.

I also started reading some books that helped me to start healing our marriage. I read Surrendering to Marriage by Iris Krasnow, I Only Say This Because I Love You by Deborah Tannen, and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray, Ph.D. The first book was more to help me recognize that my marriage was good and worth fixing, and the other two were to help me learn better patterns of communicating. After applying these insights about how women unknowingly talk to men in ways that are perceived as controlling, I am transforming the way I talk to JT and am noticing awesome results. I mean, I already had a wonderful and loving husband. We just got so beaten down by life this year, we needed to take some time to realize how many good things we do have. I learned how I could talk to JT in a way that is more appreciative, trusting, and accepting. JT's reading Men Are From Mars too, and we talk about it now and then and compare notes. He's getting a lot out of it too.

OK, now that I've explained all of this, my good news! The good news is that JT was #1 of all the applicants for that permanent full-time jailer position, and is going through the background investigation now. He continues to work there part-time and also works at the hospital once a week. I'm so glad that he has found this new police department, because I hear they are really fair and good to their employees. They discussed the possibility of sending JT to the academy at a later date so he might still become a sworn officer in a few years!

So I just have one more thing to say: I am so grateful for all the support I received from you guys while JT was in the academy. I hope that after my long absence, I will still enjoy your trust and support. For both me and JT, a new career and a new life is just beginning. Hope you'll join me again.

Fired

JT got fired. From the sounds of how it all went down, it seems like there was some kind of mistake. But that doesn't matter really. There is a story but I don't have the heart to retell it here. Besides, all they told us (therefore all we know for sure) is that they fired him, after only three weeks of academy, for his "overall sub-standard performance."

"But I passed all my tests, and I was only there three weeks," JT said.

That didn't matter.

"I'd really like to know why I'm being fired," he said.

"We don't have to tell you. You're on probation, which means we have the right to fire you at a moment's notice for any reason we want. That's all you need to know. Now if you'd like to resign rather than be fired, sign here."

So he signed the resignation letter. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't give him his dignity back. He'll still be tainted by this if he tries to get a different police officer job.

Three weeks of turning our lives upside-down, only to turn around and ask him to resign for not getting everything right away. JT's department didn't even give him the basic decent chance that his own tactical officers say they would have given him. They were shocked, and felt bad, I think. It was a decision the sergeant made, based on whatever exaggerated or unfair information the tactical staff gave him about JT.

He talked to the dept. he used to work for, tried to get his old jail job back. Isn't gonna happen. He might get a part time dispatch job in his old department though. We'll see what happens with that. We will definitely have to move in any case. Our apartment rent is several hundred dollars more than my overall take-home pay.

The world is falling down around us. It's so unjust. I think the department was just trying to cover up that they're going through a budget crisis. So much for "integrity."

If anybody knows of a book that teaches you how to hold it together for a spouse who has lost his job, please let me know. Because I'm falling apart here. We're starting to argue even, saying things that are hurtful because we're both so scared. I feel like I've been strong long enough through all this academy stuff and now I have to be strong through this... I don't know what we're going to do. The only thing I really feel like doing is giving that sergeant a piece of my mind...

So yeah, if there is anywhere I should turn for advice on how to help a spouse through a career transition or job loss, let me know. So far I'm not handling it that well. I am freaking out. Everything we've worked so hard for has gone up in smoke and they don't even have the decency to give us a straight answer about it.

The upside-down feeling in the pit of my stomach

Yesterday, JT took a sick day. Really, a mental health day, because when I woke up he was shaking in a cold sweat. He begged me not to make him go back. What do you say to someone when they say something like that? I tried to keep my composure and told him that I would support him no matter what. If this wasn't for him, better to find that out now.

He made some phone calls to the city jail he used to work in, and to the dispatch center, inquiring if he could get his old job back. They said he might be able to get the part-time dispatch position that just opened up there.

He asked me if I could find a full-time job, so that our baby would still have benefits. I said I'd try. I made some phone calls and did some web searches. No, there aren't any full-time librarian jobs in our area right now--there were some a few weeks ago but I knew they'd fill quickly. I also researched secretarial jobs.

Then for some reason I decided I desperately needed a waffle from IHOP. I was hungry, stressed, overwhelmed. I had a lot of homework to do. I invited JT to go with me but he refused, since he had called in sick and this wouldn't do. So I left him with the baby. I needed to eat, unwind, work on school and forget about anybody but myself for a while. I couldn't find an IHOP or anywhere that serves waffles but I had some pancakes.

JT sent an email to the sergeant at his police dept., explaining the real cause of his aversion to the rope. He told the sergeant about his crippling fear of heights, in hopes that he'd get farther by being honest than by continually covering it up.

In the evening JT talked to his parents, his friends, his former coworkers, and I talked to one of the other recruits' wives. They told us to stick with it and hang in there. They said that what he was going through wasn't that different from the other recruits and he bought it, he went to bed promising me (and his sergeant) that he would go back to academy in the morning.

Today, JT got up and still felt like quitting. I wasn't much help to him this morning. I had been up with JY all night (while I was eating pancakes yesterday she was having a very long nap and couldn't understand that 3 o'clock in the morning doesn't count as "morning"). I asked JT when I would ever get sleep again, and he said "When I quit."

"No," I said. "You really think my life is going to be any easier if you quit? Think again. If you want to do something for me, you will go to academy and you will stick this out."

I didn't know today would be his last day.

As he suspected, JT was given a lot of hell for calling in sick yesterday. But he willingly went to the Lions' Den to get the flags this morning. He says that my words made an impression on him and that he made a commitment to continue and stick it out. But somebody had other plans.

The tactical officers asked JT if he'd been in touch with his sergeant lately. He said he had told his sergeant about the fear of heights. Their mouths dropped. They had been contacted by this sergeant and they were starting to put 2 and 2 together.

As class was ending this afternoon, JT was asked to fall out and go back to the tactical office, at ease.

They said he was a great candidate and would make a good police officer. They said that they were impressed by the way they kept challenging him and he kept coming back. They made him class sergeant that first week and as hard as they tried, they never broke him. They applauded him on his progress at climbing the wall. And although he couldn't climb the rope, they reminded him that this is actually not a requirement for the POST certificate in our state and assured him he wouldn't have this difficulty in another academy.

They said that it wasn't personal on their part, and that they liked him. They wanted him to stay and graduate, but his sergeant had given instructions for him to clear out his locker and report to the police station at 1100 tomorrow. They said that they hoped he would still have a career in law enforcement and that they would have a lot of positive things to say about him, if prompted to give a reference.

So it was his sergeant--not him and not the academy--that finally pulled the plug.

Possibly he will still have a job, and will be sent to a different academy. Or maybe the sergeant has decided to let him go. We don't know. I'm scared right now. I feel like my whole life will be flipped upside-down now. I'm afraid that I'll have to work full time and go to school and take care of the baby all so that JT can walk away from one career and try a new one. Give up my career goals, my future, and go back to office work.

But in the short run, just for tonight, I can think of a few reasons for rejoicing:

I will not have to wash or iron a uniform tonight.
I will not have to wash PT gear.
I will not have to make sense of the messy, disorganized equipment JT needs for class, because he will not have class.
I will not have to pack a lunch.
I will not have to stay up late.
I will not have to get up before dawn.
I will sleep longer tonight than I've slept in a long time.

That is, if I can sleep.

A Talk with the Captain...and a Dressing-Down from the Sergeant

JT was called into the hallway for a chat with the academy captain one day last week. She told him that he wasn't the first guy, nor would he be the last, to struggle with the wall and the rope. She told him to hang in there and not to quit, even in spite of the tactical staff telling him to.

But a few nights later, JT wrote an email to the sergeant he reports to, telling him that he will be working on the rope every weekend in his time off. This sergeant wrote back that this was unacceptable and he should have gotten it by now. He also wrote that he will be getting a report from the academy about JT's progress this week and it had "better be good."

So since then, JT's understandably been in another funk. I would be pretty upset by an email like that, too. He's been talking about quitting. Is that normal to want to quit even after several weeks in? Will he get past this hump eventually?

Another Man Down

Another recruit dropped out today. It was his first day as class sergeant and he couldn't take it. I don't blame him. At one point during the day JT tried to talk to him but he said he didn't want to talk and that he was fine. Then an hour or so later he left, turned in all his stuff and next thing the class knew they were down to ten.

JT and his classmates are concerned they might close the academy due to the low enrollment and they'll all have to wait until the next class in November. JT would still be employed at his department but I don't know what the independent guys would do until then.

I went out with two of those guys' wives. These women are amazing--they probably get less sleep than I do and still manage to work forty-hour weeks. Their husbands are military veterans and they were supposed to be getting support from the government. But they're not! One of the girls said she'd write an angry letter to the President, if she could find the time or the energy.

We commiserated over drinks and then went to see "Dinner for Schmucks." I laughed a lot but it's that uncomfortable kind of humor, where you're laughing at something that's really sad. Still, after that movie and the good company and conversation, I felt like my anxieties and frustrations had melted away and I could go home whole to my husband and Jedi Youngling.

F.A.T.

JT recently made the "Fitness Auxiliary Team" at the academy. And no, it's not a coincidence that the acronym for this organization is "FAT." The guys were tested for their body fat percentage, and if it was over 15, they were automatically on the team.

JT's was 16%.

So now he has to have his lunches checked out by the tactical staff. I think he even has to go to the Lion's Den to have them check it. He also will have to report what he ate on the weekends. So while we are still going to go on a "date night" Saturday, we may have to consider that veggie tofu grill instead of Applebee's.

Another guy dropped out. I hadn't really been counting but just for the record they are now down to eleven recruits (from fifteen). This guy dropped out because he failed a couple of tests and decided he couldn't do it. This is unfortunate, because ideally JT could have tutored him and helped him out. It's a shame he had to quit.

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I haven't been exercising as I should, but I am rejoicing that I dropped another two pounds and my figure's looking good! That's the nice thing about carting a baby around everywhere like I'm a single mom--she gets heavier, and I get lighter! ;)

The other day I was filling my gas tank and a stranger asked me for directions and then tried to hit on me. He said I was pretty. I think I blushed and said "thanks" and climbed hurriedly back in my car. It wasn't a big deal but I looked at it as a reason for rejoicing: If I am still attractive to some men, there's a chance my husband might still really be into me!

It's taken me six months, but I am slowly becoming more confident with my mommy bod. :)

Another Monday

Yesterday, I tried to make the day about JY. She's almost six months old. First I called the library to sign her up for storytime. Those of you who have small children under 2, check out what your library has to offer them! Many libraries have increased their services for the 0-4 crowd and their parents, offering storytimes, sign language classes, and more.

Then I spent the morning before she got up putting photos into her Baby Journal. And in the afternoon, we did arts and crafts! We made some hand prints and foot prints. They hang on the wall next to her crib now. I don't think she understood what we were doing at all (Mommy why are you coating my hand in black sticky stuff?), but I hope it was fun for her. I actually used an old fingerprinting pad from JT's former jail job for the foot before realizing that the kit came with an inkpad that's non-toxic, so I used that for her hand. It didn't all wash off though, so I'm making her wear those newborn mittens until it does.



Daddy came home, and the first thing I noticed were the drops of blood on his sweatpants, and the open sores on his wrist where they came from. He was crying. "They've singled me out as the weak one, and they're trying to weed me out. They want me to drop out." I put my arms around him. "They won't let up on me. They made me class sergeant again--who knows for how long this time."

This development actually happened on Friday. JT was telling me then, how he'll be class sergeant for the day and whenever he comes to something that he knows and can do well, like the twelve daily exercises, they pick somebody else to be class sergeant for that task. I told him this makes sense: academy isn't about showing off what you do well; it's about being beaten down for the things you don't until you do.

For JT, his memorization and academics are what keeps him going. He scored 95% on a test Friday that half the class failed. He took a spelling test yesterday and got a perfect score.

What did the tactical staff have to say about that? "We're gonna call up your police department. Tell them that you can spell but you can't jump a wall and you can't climb a rope. We're gonna tell them that you're not ready for this. You're a disgrace to your department." Then they give him more physical tasks like these as punishment for not having been able to do them.

So you can imagine the state in which my husband came home yesterday, and the work I had to do to put his self-esteem back together.

I held him for a while. He caught me staring at the blood spots on his pants, and asked me what I was thinking. I told him "a lot of things." Sad that he was bleeding and in pain. Wondering how I was going to get the stains out.

He was distraught that he might fail the physical part of academy, and have to look for a new job. He emailed the sergeant of his police department explaining the situation and all he got back in response was a curt, "Get it done." But he's trying as hard as he can--if these people could see the bruises sleeving his arms and the blisters crowding his palms they would see that, wouldn't they?

I brought him dinner in bed, told him that we'd be okay. "I shouldn't have said those things about your masters degree," he said, "because for all I know that may be the very thing that saves this family." I told him he didn't need to worry about providing for the family--that's just extra stress. We discussed what would happen though, if he didn't make it. I tried to do a little "best case, worst case". Best case, he would keep practicing and eventually climb that rope. Worst case, he would fail out, but then you have a range of other possible consequences to consider. Maybe he would just get sent to academy all over again. Maybe they'd send him to a different one. Or maybe he would have to look for a new job, a new path in life, and that's okay. We have a little money set aside, we'll be fine.

He asked me to go to a sports store and get some things he needed--under armour, wrist bands, and athletic tape. I also needed to buy some more Dryel for his uniform, which I've had to clean almost every night. I took the baby with me, carried her around the sporting goods store and and then made another stop at Albertsons for the Dryel and other cleaning products. The baby had been so good throughout this time, but as soon as we came home she started crying.

On our way in I accidentally brushed through a barn spider's web. This used to freak me out but last night I was apologetic for wrecking her hard work. I can relate to spiders now. I have restful mornings but my real work begins at sundown.

As I walked into the door with the baby in her car seat, the first thing JT said to me was, "By the way, I had to write a report because you ironed my uniform wrong. The collar isn't supposed to be stiff, it's supposed to lie flat. I'm just letting you know."



And my night went downhill from there.

You know, there are recruits who do all of this on their own. There's a single guy who lives with his parents and his mom absolutely refuses to do any of this for him. She says it was his choice and not hers, so he can iron his own uniform. I don't want to be that unsupportive, but sometimes I wish I could say the same thing.

I strapped the baby to me in one of those Baby Bjorn type infant carriers (although mine is actually a cheaper Chicco knock-off) and JY hated it. She fussed and cried while I tried to remove everything from JT's uniform, collect up his sand-caked PT gear, and put the one in the dryer and the other in the washer. She was hungry, but I selfishly wanted to get to bed before 1 a.m. and therefore needed to get the clothes started washing before I fed her. "I'm sorry, little bird," I told her. "In a minute your daddy will feed you and you'll have some nice Daddy time."

JT had told me, before I'd left for the store, that he would feed the baby when he was done writing reports. By the time I got the clothes loaded he was done, and already settling down into bed. But he wasn't getting off that easy. I brought his daughter to him and some rice cereal. I stayed with them a minute. When it quickly became apparent that his idea of feeding her was shoveling huge spoonfuls of food down her throat before she even had a chance to swallow, I lost it.

I took the spoon away from him and took over. "The one thing you said you'd do for me tonight was feed our daughter. But I'm not going to sit here and watch you choke her to death! You have to make sure she's swallowing! PAY F---ING ATTENTION!"

I'm sorry, but you put my baby in danger and you're gonna wake the bear.

A while later, the baby is fed but still not happy, and I'm making JT's lunch, and JT is in bed, crying out in pain. I'm starting to feel like Nurse Ratchet, like my house has turned into an insane asylum. I asked JT what was wrong and he said he thought he might have a bruised rib. I was freaked out. I said we should take him to the hospital but he said no. I asked how he's supposed to climb the wall and do ten pull-ups if he has a terrible stabbing pain in his side. He said he didn't know, but he didn't want to look like a baby by reporting his injury and sitting out from PT.

I was like, "Well, which is it then? Are you injured or are you a baby? Because if you're not going to treat this like a real injury then I'm not going to either. I've already got one crying baby to deal with and if you aren't really injured then maybe you could try to keep it down!"

"Ma'am, Yes Ma'am!"

I felt bad for how I was acting. It's just that I go a little crazy with all the crying and fussing that goes on around here. And to be honest, I don't think JT would have handled it any better if it was the other way around. He would have told me to quit. The times when I've been emotional or sad, he always yelled at me because he didn't know how to handle the stress of it. I think, on the whole, I've done okay...

I nursed the baby and put her to bed, and JT took some vicodin and fell asleep. I stayed up at least an hour longer, ironing his uniform and putting all the metal stuff back on it, getting his PT gear together, and cleaning up the kitchen which was a mess.

Then five hours later (at 5 a.m. this morning), I got up with him and walked him out to the car. I apologized for the way I talked to him and asked how he was doing. He said he was feeling okay. I hope his day goes better today. He knows that if he has chest pains again he needs to say something.