The Only Girl Among Boys: JRTC Journals Days 19-21: Stupid Freaking Gnome

Stupid. Freaking. Deployment. Gnome.

Oh yes, you know him. The little guy that sneaks up on you, the cousin of Murphy's Law, and just starts wrecking everything he can while the hubs is deployed, TDY, whatever. Maybe the Gnome is visiting this house because we're prepping for deployment. Maybe he just likes to torture me. Who knows. In any case, he's here, all bright and shiny and ready to wreck us.

And after 13 years of this lifestyle, what I should do the moment I see that gnome appear is say:

There's no amount of begging or pleading or bribery that can make a Gnome go away when the hubs is gone. The only appropriate thing to do when you spot a Gnome is to say a quick prayer and

But instead, I get all sorts of empowered and kinda go:

Yeah, well, taunting that Gnome is more like a ...

Gauntlet thrown. Whoops.

So the temps have been just about abominable, and trying to get out of bed when it's literally -16 outside is kind of like:

So, at -12, I've got the kids bundled up so much it's like:

And after 5 minutes of waiting at the stop, the kids are all:

Right. Screw this. I start the car, warm it up and take them myself. Turns out there was an electrical fire at one of the schools, and that equals late buses. Deployment Gnome 1: Mom 0.

Task accomplished, boys are to school, and now it's laundry time.

Seeing as our washer pipes run on the outside walls of the house, and there was no way to drip them last night, I have to thaw them out.

Wouldn't you know it, the Gnome has misplaced the heat gun, which leaves me crouched down behind the washer kind of like this.... with a freaking hairdryer.

So after 1/2 hour, I get the water flowing and I'm feeling all victorious, kind of like I took that gnome and just:

So yeah, I'm all good with my bad self until it's time to take the load I washed and put it into the dryer. That's when I read the Power Source Error code on my 2 year-old Kenmore set and I'm all:

Suddenly, I'm envisioning the rest of the week's laundry being done by freaking hand.

The same day, I get a LOVELY letter from the boys' school, informing me that they've each missed 10 days of school. Yeah, um... Guys, we excused them, and their teachers gave us all their work so we could go home to Colorado for Christmas. We're well aware of where they were. Do some people NOT know where their kids are? Anyway, the letter concludes that they'll now be "watching" their attendance, and have enclosed the attendance policy to "inform" me of their requirements, which leaves me all:

But then it comes.... THE SICKNESS. Brody takes a fever, and in the world of Epilepsy, it's a big reason to worry.

The first night of the Fever, he's up about every hour, every 1/2 hour, heck every 15 minutes. So the next morning, after having only 3 hours of sleep, which only occurred because I broke our cardinal rule and brought him into our bed, I'm all:

Because on anything less than about four hours of sleep, Basically......

Yeah, but there's nothing coffee won't fix. So being the mom I am, I know the biggest challenge will be not having it spread to the other kids, which means disinfecting...

Night number two comes, and again, he's up every hour, half-hour.... And around 3:30 A.M. all I can think is:

And then someone I love says the Gem, "Welcome to motherhood." Yeah, dude, after ten years and four boys all I can say is:

And on day number two, I receive edits from my Pitchwars mentor, the awesome Molly Lee, to revise my manuscript. My head is 2 hours-of-sleep fuzzy, and it just feels like the Gnome is mocking me.

And that's when I realize it. The stupid, freaking gnome is winning.

So night number three comes, and I'm thinking that he has to be exhausted. He has to sleep. Ummmmm Yeah....

You see, there's no fever right now. No, he's just laying there in bed, kicking the wall that adjoins my bedroom. At this point, in the last two days, I've had 5 hours of sleep, and unless there's a newborn in this house I don't know about, all I can think is:

So around 4:15 a.m., Brody's fever spikes.... and then so does Chase, and all I can think is:

But, really, in all honesty, all I want is for you to:

I mean, come on... Would I ever say that to my little boys? Especially when they're sick?

Night number three ends, on... yep, you guessed it, 2 hours of sleep. Come morning, I'm all:

So here we are now, 2 fevered kids, a broken dryer, and frozen... everything. But you know what else happened? I got a request from a Publisher. A PUBLISHER!

So now I have to finish these edits and bite the head off the gnome so I can send that submission too, leaving me with 4 irons in the writing fire. But this is not impossible, because the days are counting down and Jason will be home soon. And we all know what happens to that sparkly little gnome... you know