Dancing on the Edge

What a Day

It started about 6:10 this morning when Kelton came in to wake me up; "Mom...when are you going to wake up?" "Not yet...please leave me alone." It had been a long night with the girl and I wanted another hour. Fifteen minutes later he was back. And then 15 minutes after that. *sigh* Up I got while the girl slept on. Of course.

The reason he wanted me up was because he couldn't access his new favorite site; IKnowThat.com. He's been glued to it for days and since it's educational and fun, it's fine with me. Anyway, for some reason it wouldn't load. At all. For the entire day. He was beyond frustrated and to be honest, so was I.

I wrote to our service provider to see if this was something they could help with. They could but it meant an on-line chat with a tech. Yeah - that's fun to do with two little ones underfoot, in your lap, hanging on your shoulder and asking a bazillion questions about "Is it fixed yet Mom?" About an hour into the chat, after running diagnostics and queries in DOS (which I now know way more about than I did this morning. Or ever before. Let's just say I now know how to "ping" an IP address.) it was determined that the problem most likely was coming from our wireless router. I needed to disconnect it and reconnect the CPU directly to the cable connection. If the web page was accessible to me after doing that, the router was the issue and we need to contact and NetGear to discuss that with them.

I called Dakota and told her about the conversation and that we would need to disconnect, reconnect, etc when she got home tonight. I'm not someone who likes to mess around with cords and wires and whatnot. Way too much can go wrong. I'm just not up for it. Dakota said, and I quote: "That sure doesn't make me look forward to coming home tonight." Not exactly what I was looking to hear after spending most of the day dealing with this stuff. (And honey - I know you are reading this. I love you like crazy but maybe, just maybe, a "Sure. I'll help you with that tonight." would have been better received. We both know how well I took the first comment. *grin*)

Anyway, I was less than happy....ok truthfully I was pretty pissed off that she didn't want to help me figure it out (but to be fair I know that it's not something a person *wants* to deal with when they arrive home at 10:15 at night. Also to be fair, it's not something *I* wanted to deal with either.). Yes, she did agree to help me but by then I was a bit over the edge so after I hung up the phone and got the kids eating their dinner I started pulling the computer cabinet away from the wall so I could reach all the zillions of wires. After a bit of cursing I did locate the cords I needed and disconnected the router (well..what I was hoping was the router). Like magic, when I turned on the computer, the web page appeared.

A happier boy you have NEVER seen! He was dancing around squealing with joy and he kept hugging me and saying "You're amazing Mom! I love you!" How can you *not feel good about that? :)

We called Dakota and let her know it was done. She was really happy for us that Kelton was back on-line. And oh - I should mention that Dakota had called me back somewhere in there and apologized for her earlier comment. I, of course, forgave her. :) She also told me her final grades for last semester and let me tell you: SHE ROCKS!!!! :)

So at the end of the day I know how to "ping" something, I know how to disconnect the router and reconnect the cable to the CPU, I carried on a conversation that was dripping in techie speak while dealing with two kids AND I made my son one very happy boy.

All in all, a pretty good day. And honey, I'm sorry I came a wee bit unglued. :)