Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Buh bye Laptop

I must first tell you that I really do love my little toddler Trav more than I can ever say.  He brings me more joy than I knew was possible.

photo courtesy of Amanda Brown Photography

He also brings me many trials to overcome, like patience, and learning that you simply can't cry over spilled milk (or an entire bottle of water on your laptop as the case may be).  Yes you read that correctly.

Up until this point in his 18 months of life, he has always clung to my side.  He's great with independent play but wants to always be in the same room where I am.  Just in the last week or so he has really seemed to grow up a lot.  He recently grew a liking to "LaLa" (Elmo) and will actually watch Sesame Street contently for 10 minutes.  It has been amazing.  I was struck with a mommy moment Friday morning blow drying my hair in our bathroom when I thought about how great it was to be in a phase with him where he was okay to be in another room doing his thing while I did mine.  Then I had a "duh mommy" moment when I realized he had been quiet for way too long.  Heart started racing, and right on queue he walked in with my empty water bottle, "ba ba".  Oh crap.  An empty bottle in hand meant that there was a lot of water somewhere in the house.  It didn't take long to discover what he was up to during his quiet playtime.  He had pulled the kitchen table over to the island, climbed onto it, and dumped the entire bottle of water on my laptop.  Awesome.

I quickly took the battery and hard drive out and dried everything out as best as I could.  Per my techy geek sweets' instructions, we left it off for several days to fully dry out.  It's now been 4 days since the event and when we plugged it in today, there was actually sign of life for a minute but then nada.  I think it's a gonner.  The laptop was 7 years old and nothing fancy, but all of my pictures are stored on that hard drive so I feel like a lost soul without them right now.  I am hoping and praying that when we find a way to transfer the files to an external hard drive that they are retrievable!

Why am I telling you this story?  Well primarily for your sympathy... just kidding (kind of), but mostly so that  you will understand my delay for the remaining master bedroom tutorials.  A tutorial with no pictures is like a boring encyclopedia page.  I have also started writing a tutorial for how I re-upholstered the chair I found on KSL with a $10 canvas drop cloth from Home Depot.  Get excited, folks.

From my experience I hope that at least one smart mommy out there walks away with more wisdom than I had.  Quiet time for a toddler, as peaceful for you as it may seem can only mean catastrophe.



  1. First off, Ahh your laptop! I'm sorry! That is so not fun- but that helps me for when i can prepare maybe I can watch for stuff like that? But I guess that happens when you least expect it.
    Secondly, Yay for the tutorial! I was so wondering how you did it! thank you thank you! Can't wait to see it!

  2. What a cutie, it would be hard to be mad at him for long. I've been enjoying your blog, especially your post of the nightstand make over! I mentioned you in a post today and linked to your blog. Have a great day.

  3. OH, NO!! I will have to remember this when my granddaughter that I am going to start keeping a couple days a week gets bigger. I have to remember what trouble they can get into in a short amount of time.

  4. My middle child is the perfect example of if it's quiet, you're in trouble. One time I was at a friend's and we realized we didn't know where Kate was, and we found her in the bathroom naked totally covered in shaving cream and toothpaste with the mirror totally covered in shave cream, shaving the mirror with a razor. Just glad she didn't try to shave herself!

    And I hear you about the pics...we had the great hard drive meltdown of 2008 (my hubby accidentally wiped the hard drive with all our pics of our kids on it). After that we bought Carbonite...it's so nice to know our digital life is secure and retrievable.

  5. Kylee, you are too sweet! I feel so special to keep getting such nice comments from you. Glad to know you'll be reading the tutorial... motivation for me to keep going with it!

    Jodie, thanks so much for the mention! I loved the poem you shared on your post as well.

    Kim, hopefully I will have saved you from an experience with your grandaughter. How sweet of you to take care of her. My mom did that with my oldest niece when she was younger and now they have such a strong bond because of it.

    Lady thought- your story TOTALLY tops mine. That is hilarious, especially because it was at someone else's house. So lucky that she didn't actually use the razor. Isn't motherhood a joy?
    Thanks so much for the Carbonite suggestion. I'll definitely look into it...

  6. For my niece probably the biggest thing I've learned from her is not to sweat the small stuff. When you are young you do not dwell on the past because you don't have much past to dwell on. Why shouldn't we as older people be any different?

    -Zane of ontario honey

