I’m sitting at the kitchen table one Sunday morning with our little one. He’s eating breakfast and watching one of his favorite programs, I am drinking a cup of coffee and working on my iPad…hadn’t brushed my hair, was in my pjs…..looking great I’m sure. When the doorbell rings. Well whenever that happens, our toddler runs at lightening speed to answer the door. He’s fast and hasn’t quite learned yet that you don’t just swing the door wide open and let anyone in. So I run too, and I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye toward the driveway and there is a police car in it. Oh lord, it wasn’t our weekend with the girls, so I am instantly concerned because I don’t know where they are. My husband is upstairs taking a shower. We open the door and my son takes one look, says hi and grabs my leg. I greeted the officer and asked if I could help him. He asks me if this is where (insert daughter’s names here) live. I think I visibly swallowed hard and I said yes…sometimes. I said they aren’t here right now though because it’s their weekend with their Mom. He asked me her address and I couldnt think, l blanked. I said you know I’ll have to check the actual number but she lives on such and such street. To which he said, he had just come from over there and didn’t really want to drive all the way back across town.
He pulls, almost as if behind his back, the girls’ Vera Bradley wallets. I drew in a breath, they would never part with those, I thought. They are all up in the Vera stuff! I looked up at him and he finally says, I found these and I am thinking that possibly their car was broken into? Well geez, that I could handle but this guy had me scared to death up to that point. Just then my husband comes down the stairs, I briefly let him know why the officer came by, and he takes over from there. I retreat to the kitchen with our son. I wasn’t real happy about the way the officer handled this. From my perspective he strung me out unnecessarily at the door. Other than for added dramatic effect I don’t know why he would do that. Uncool. I guess I’ll chalk it up to being young and inexperienced and he was I would imagine not a guy with children.
Hubby calls the girls, who are at their Mother’s and talks to them. They go outside in the driveway and yes in fact their stuff is missing from their car. Someone had gotten into it; you can’t technically say it was broken into I guess because it was unlocked. We can safely say though that someone stole their wallets and bags. My husband started to lecture about keeping your car locked but was short circuited when informed that the girls’ Mother had been the last one in the car and the one who left it open. I’m sure she felt bad, I would have.
Anyway, the officer takes a report, leaves the wallets with us and off he went. The odd thing was that the wallets were full of gift cards, the only thing missing was a few dollars cash. Seemed odd. One of our daughters had just been through an ugly breakup with a insecure, possessive, overly jealous crazy boy, I couldn’t help think that someone the girls knew was behind this. Why not take those gift cards? Only thing I could think is whoever it was didn’t need or want them, and only stole those things to be hurtful. They didn’t even keep the wallets, they threw them out on the street. We never found the other Vera Bradley bags. Thing is if it was crazy boy, he picked on the wrong sister. Most of the items stolen belonged to our other daughter. And she was very angry.
When the girls returned from their Mothers, the topic of conversation for the next few days was the break in. How could their Mom have done that! Well it happens, that’s how! Once I told them of my suspicions, they agreed it could very well be someone they knew. One of the girls, the one who lost the most, ranted about how expensive those items were and she felt someone should replace them. We told her that was a conversation to be had between her and her Mother. She also had trouble sleeping for a couple of nights and though both felt the aftermath of having been violated like that, she in particular struggled with it. All we could really do was tell her we understood and that those feelings were normal after going through something like this. It is a bad feeling and it is a hard lesson in life.
Lessons learned
- Usually seeing a police car in your driveway is not a good thing. No matter how much life experience you have, it still gives you that feeling in the pit of your stomach. And if you have children, especially if you know your kids aren’t home, it hits you in the gut real hard and real quick!
- Every time I think about the way that officer conducted the interaction at my front door that morning I get angry. What he should have said is, I found these wallets, are your daughters home? That would have set me somewhat at ease; instead of what he did which was string me out, making me wonder if the girls were ok and then producing those wallets which I knew were theirs making me again think oh God, something’s happened to them, they’ve been abducted. These people are public servants and I respect greatly what they do. But for crying out loud, could someone please teach them a section on sensitivity? If you are a police officer going to someone’s house about their children, and you have no reason to believe the children have come to some harm, for heavens sake start your conversation that way.
- Unfortunately lots of us have had our cars, homes, etc. broken into and have had things stolen. It’s a bad feeling. I think all we can really do as parents is teach our kids how to be vigilant, how to be aware of their surroundings, to do all they can to prevent such things and then if something happens, just see them through it. It’s too bad, but it’s a part of life we all have to deal with.
Good Stepmom
