"Take these dispatches and..."

Well, I'm not particularly awake yet, so forgive the typos, please ladies...

Sometime back (I think before Aria was born), I had offered to dispatch for our local volunteer Fire Department. DH was leutenant at the time and said he'd talk it over with the chief. Long story short, because the chief was in town during the day, we didn't need a dispatcher, he could do it.

Three months ago, our chief was medically retired. DH is now Assistant Chief. The chief came to him and asked if my previous offer was still good.

Well, at this point, I have a two and a half year old, and a one year old, and I'm babysitting a four year old child who is very high needs. I tell DH I will think about it. One night, they get some kind of call right before dinner time, leaving me to deal with kids, walking the dog, and doing the things that are normally his responsibility in the evening, plus cook dinner and bathe the kids etc (you ladies know the drill). My DH is a wonderful helper at home and I'm quite frankly spoiled by that! So that night I "pretend" that I'm also having to handle dispatch, and realize that it's not such a hot idea.

Fast forward to Monday the 23rd. Right now we have fifteen firefighters on our roster. Usually, however, it's the same three or four guys who go out on almost every single call. Most of our guys work traditional day time schedules, so there aren't many people here from about 7ish am to about 6ish pm, cause the jobs are all 30 or more miles away. I get a phone call from the Sheriff (the actual guy, not a deputy or one of his underlings) and he's ticked off. Seems there's a fire in our district, and he's been toning us out for the last hour and no one has responded. He tells me I'm the first live person he's gotten and can I please find him some firefighters and get him an updated call sheet. "Yes, Sir" says I, a little intimidated (to which my husband would be shocked). So I pull the call sheet off the fridge and start calling firefighters and get four on the scene. I tell DH "I guess you better get me a radio."

So he brings me a radio and dashes out the door with a half frozen turkey sandwich. I start listening in but no one calls. No big deal, because I have no idea what in the world I'm doing!!!

So I call our administrative assistant. She does the office work for 2 days a week, and is assistant chief and back up dispatch for the neighboring district. Tell her the Sheriff needs a call sheet and I need dispatch lessons. We agree to talk after she fixes dinner and I get babies down. She gives me a crash course in dispatch.

Now, the entire reason I turned down dispatch is because of my "worst case scenario." Dinner is being cooked, babies are fussy cause they're hungry or whatever, I don't have any bigs here to help, and something major happens.

So Tuesday dawns, and I actually get to get on the radio, to ask the guys who are watching for flare ups from Monday's fire if they are going to need to refill the water trucks, so the town can make the extra water available. I take care of that, and do my normal mommy stuff. Do it more efficiently and at a faster pace because I have no idea what may happen down the road.

DH comes home a little early, so he can get on the scene of the fire and do an assessment, so I put dinner on early-something easy because I don't know what is going to happen with the fire. I made spaghetti sauce earlier in the CP and bread in the machine, all I had to do was deal with the meat and pasta.

Now, Aria, now 15 months old, is teething, so she's been fussy all day. Roan is moderately fussy, mostly due to his being 2 and wanting his way all the time. I'm walking into the kitchen to drain the pasta, and the radio goes off. So I'm in the midst of cooking dinner (and risking icky overcooked pasta with not enough to replace it if I ruin it), dealing with fussy babies, the dog needs to go out, it's raining, and I need to dispatch a smoke report. It's my first darn day on the job and already my worst case scenario has happened!

Well, I did it. Not only did I do it (thankfully it was only a smoke chase, it's hazy cause we have three fires nearby) but I did a pretty good job, according to my DH and the lady who trained me, who called to tell me I was doing an awesome job. The oldest kid I have at home right now, Nikki, who is 7, stepped up and did a great job at helping, too!

So I guess I'm a working mommy. Still home, but working. I'm trying to get things done earlier, because I never know when the radio will take me away from that stuff. But if I have all the dinner prep done early, it will save me time in the evenings. Also planning on double cooking a lot of things and taking a day a month to put some extra food in the freezer so I can just pull stuff out if something happens near dinner time.

There are some benefits-#1 is that with a local dispatcher, my husband will be safer. The other guys as well, but of course, my primary concern lies at home. I'll have life insurance, and we get a small incentive bonus for every call we work on, so every call I dispatch I will get a small amount of money for, paid in one check in December. Plus DH gets a "recruitment bonus" for me "joining" the FD. That will help our family out a lot. Life insurance for me has been a concern in our family-if something happens to me, DH would have to pay childcare so he could work. Now that huge need will be taken care of.

So now to figure out how to juggle all of this LOL.