Cops are our friends...

So my sister has been reading this blog and she was anxious for me to post again, and sent me an email suggesting that I post about "5 things we did this weekend".... I wrote back saying "what about the 5 police officers that came to our house when we called 911 this weekend"? As you can imagine that alone did not satisfy her curiosity.
Well to be honest, the question back to her was not actually what happened... we actually only had 3 police officers show up... must have been a busy night in SB Vermont.... ;)
I feel like I should back up for reference sake....
So basically when you have a 9 year old, 110 lb child you can't always control everything they do... you also can't just pick them up and hold them to keep them from being distructive if they want to be..... however, trained police officers can.... and in the case of little man, they have!
The first time we had a visit from the guys and gals in blue was before Christmas, and before we had all of our services in place that help with his support. However, even with all of those services in place sometimes he just won't listen to anyone who is not sporting a badge.... if anyone out there knows where I can purchase one of these that would be helpful.....
Anyway, so I quickly learned several lessons once we started calling the police:

- Little man listens to them.... most of the time.... and when he doesn't they make him.....
- Police can get to your house really quickly... nice to know....
- When you have a child that police struggle with, the next time you call they show up in droves, like 7 cars at once outside our house....
- They all talk to each other and all know the trouble kids in town.... When we said his name this weekend 3 officers in unison said "ooohhhhh....".... kind of amusing....
- When you live in a neighborhood EVERYONE knows when the cops are at your house.... and often want to know why... but they won't ask you directly....
- Police are really good with kids... difusing them and even entertaining them when appropriate.... they are not always so good and providing helpful advice to parents though... I mean, when you are sitting on your couch crying, do I really need a cop telling me that "sometimes kids just need attention?".... lucky I did not own my own gun at that moment.....

So, yeah, this weekend he escalated really quickly and tried to turn over a large piece of furniture, kicked me several times, threw things at both Mom and I and actually ran out of the house and was gone for several minutes (he never goes far when it is dark outside... sort of the benefit of him being afraid of everything I guess). So while we had our on-site services on the way they police also came because they could get there so quickly. Frankly, compared to how it could have gone it was pretty anticlamactic.... He calmed down pretty quickly once they showed up and we just waited for on-site. The funniest part was when an officer sat down in a chair and our dog climbed right up into his lap and layed down.... clearly she knows cops are our friends too....

One observation about myself that I have found very interesting over the past several months is just how "normal" this life seems now... I mean, the first time we called the cops I was mortified that one car was in front of our house.... now there can be many and it won't even affect the rest of my day..... "oh yeah, had Cheerios, a visit from the cops, and a nice drive into work this morning...".... They say in the south we hide our skeletons well, and the fact is that our family issues are out on our front lawn regularly.... I don't know if the neighbors think we are nuts or know we are doing the best we can.... I guess I can't worry to much about that piece.....

We did have a funny moment once though.... We had the cops come one morning and it was a particularly bad visit where Little man actually ended up being handcuffed, carried to the cruiser and taken down to the station. Did I mention our driveway in the school bus stop? Yeah, not pretty.... about 10 kids in our driveway, 4 feet of snow on the ground, and a screaming 9 year old being carried in his PJs out the front door.... If I can make it through that embarrassment I can make it through anything.... anyway, when Mom came home from the station (she went down, I had to get to work) one of our neighbors who has never actually spoken a word to us was using his snowblower to plow our driveway.... I guess sympathy comes in many ways, and we really appreciated it....

So that was how my weekend ended.... cops and craziness... but strangly a rather normal weekend.... the biggest bummer?: When the local police make their annual calls to raise money for their program, how can I possibly make up an excuse not to give them money? I could go broke! So, thank your local police officers, they deal with more crap then I have ever thought possible....