In Tears...

[Mamaof5]

...I don't know what I'm going to do. We just bought a mini system (AX3300-ED2215A) and we lock our bedroom door with an eye hook but the 4.5 year old has figured it out by standing on a toy or using the broom (standing on a toy this time) and unlocked our door.

The mini system came crashing down off the desk and now is not working properly. I think she broke hardware. I'm beyond terrified of what my husband's response is because now it's a 300 dollar paperweight. It's not responding to anything and keeps crashing in Win 7 (home premium edition) saying not enough memory....

It's got 4 gigs of ddr3 ram...there should be more than enough memory, I checked to see if it just came loose, I can't even get my hands in there to see if it is. I don't know what they broke or did before it came crashing down but this household will not be a quiet one when he gets back from a tow call that has had him out for more than 6 hours now. This is not going to be an easy night...I'm about ready to pay someone to take this child away...I can't believe the same day we get it she goes and breaks it. I bleeping surrender, I'm so done, and so freaking tired of it.

 

[BeyondWeary]

I am so sorry to read the mishap. My boys have broken so many things...I tell them I can't wait to visit their apartments, drop food and drinks on their sofas, knock glassware off tables, etc. etc. THEN, I can ride in their cars and really go to town! HA!

Do you have homeowner's insurance? It may cover computers. - HANG IN THERE.

 

[Mamaof5]

I have content insurance, I wonder if that will cover it?

 

[SRL]

I'm so sorry this happened--it's so hard when something valuable is destroyed. Hopefully the insurance will cover it.

It will be a pain, but you probably need to put an actual lock on that door.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Hope husband didn't make everyone's life too tough last night - this is such a shame - I'm hoping you can figure out an easy and cheap solution....

Sharon

 

[SRL]

We had a kid throw up on my husband''s work laptop computer once. The insurance did cover it, and in fact the adjustor laughed when he told him what happened.

The boss didn't laugh though.

Needless to say, that was the end of using the work computer for children's games around here.

 

[trinityroyal]

Mo5, I'm so sorry about this. I would check with your insurer about whether the system is covered under your contents insurance. Be sure to verify your deductible before making a claim. If your deductible is close to the replacement cost of your computer, it might not be worth the grief of having a claim on your insurance record, which might cause an increase in your premiums.

As for locks, I would suggest that you take the opportunity now to install a proper key lock on any doors that you don't want your children getting into. difficult child or easy child, they can be pretty creative about getting into things, and with 5 of them you need all the help you can get.

Sending hugs, and a large Tim's double-double your way.

Trinity

 

[Mamaof5]

HAPPY UPDATE!!!

Turns out the clip for one of the ram chips popped open and the chip was loose, I'm typing on the mini system now. It's back up and running and at par. It was also a couple of settings as well (stupid McFee **** anti-virus, what a resource hog. I learned that Win 7 lags with less than 4 gigs of ram so 2 gigs of functional ram makes it lag badly on high performance settings). I'm still kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop just in case it did do more damage but the system seems utterly fine right now if not a little shell shocked tech wise at first.

What an introduction to the household this computer had *lol* My deductible is 100 dollars on content insurance and because I have my work equipment listed on there it was a matter of adding this one under the home business section of my content\business insurance. Not a bad deal if you ask me. I'd hate to make a claim anyway because it is linked to my car insurance and every time you make a claim it raises your insurance here. Benchmarked the system and it's performing at par if not above par. Whew and hubby...well he handled it a lot better than I thought he would...he did get upset but didn't yell, didn't scream...lol just took a bath and went to bed shaking his head....

We decided that indeed we need a key lock door knob on our door, we'll be doing that tomorrow as the place to go to get it is closed on Sundays but that's our first thing we're doing tomorrow morning after dropping them off at daycare! I think I'll pick up those simple door alarms too again. That way at night I know if she leaves her room or not (she's taken to regression to her house roaming again).

 

[Mamaof5]

We had a kid throw up on my husband''s work laptop computer once. The insurance did cover it, and in fact the adjustor laughed when he told him what happened.

The boss didn't laugh though.

Needless to say, that was the end of using the work computer for children's games around here.

I'm so sorry for this but that actually made me giggle out loud. I have a picture of that in my head and uhm wow what a way to explain to insurance what happened to the laptop...I guess it's something you can look back on and laugh about afterwards in hindsight (even our crash and burn last night we'll laugh about later when she's older saying "you remember the time when..."

 

[Andy]

I am so glad things worked out. Last Monday, difficult child and I did something behind husband's back. It was unbelievable the guilt I felt as well as the fear of what would happen when husband arrived home which we thought would be Friday night. The thing we did was put $$$ down on a goldendoodle (very hard to find in our area). So, Tuesday night, difficult child and I had a "we may not be getting this" conversation which really upset difficult child but he handled it very well. I am pretty sure he knows where I am coming from even if it is not fair that he does not get a dog. I told difficult child that if husband says "no" than we just can not do it. I was shaking on our way home Monday and so worked up all week. I do lots of things without consulting him but this was a biggie since both of us had pretty much agreed neither of us ever wanted a dog and this would be a medium to large size one. He came home Thursday night an being the numbers guy he is, he was angry that we put $$ down without consulting him (I had told difficult child not to tell him we put $$ down, just that we had found one). I told husband to forget about the $$ - It was my $$ and if I loose it no big deal - bad lesson learned - he needed to let us know if difficult child could have a dog or not - if someone handed the puppy to us for free could we keep it?

So, now husband is looking at fencing for the back yard and trying to find something cheaper. Everything he brings up sheds. I think we will be getting this goldendoodle (very low shedding) whose mom is a goldendoodle and dad is a poodle. I am still uncertain but difficult child really does need a dog of his own. (diva puppy belongs to Diva)

difficult child is working out names - right now it may be Akita.

 

[GoingNorth]

be very aware that if the dog is 3/4 poodle, you are going to be dealing with grooming bills every 6 weeks or so. For a larger dog, that can run into about 65 dollars or more each time, depending on groomers and the area in which you live.

Poodles actually do shed. The hair stays stuck in the coat and mats like crazy. Plus, unlike many dogs who are genetically programmed to only grow hair of a certain length, poodles and many crosses don't have those genes.

 

[Mamaof5]

Well the other boot softly landed, the hard drive has a few bad clusters due to the tumble but Winblows is fixing the bad clusters it can and marking the ones for non-use it can't right now. (on the laptop at the moment). I said to hubby it's probably a software issue (mouse that we did attach was our old scroll ball logitech which wasn't coming up compatible in Win 7 or installed, and Winamp remote hates Win 7 so I figured it was that and just got lucky) but hubby was right there was some damage done to the hard drive but nothing the CHKDSK can't fix.

If the hard drive pooches in a couple of months I can get a terrabyte drive for 100 bucks anyways (I got me some gooooood connections lol). I might just get the terrabyte drive anyway and leave the 640 gig for solely for the op system (with the bad clusters marked there's no need to worry about the os crashing, it just doesn't use those clusters).

So a soft second shoe drop, not nearly as bad as the first one.

 

[TerryJ2]

Mamaof5, I am so sorry! I know the feeling. It's ALWAYS on the new stuff!
I'm glad you figured it out, and that things worked out with-husband. I have often decided against claims with-the ins company, but ours is not tied into car ins. I would look into that if I were you. "No Fair" screams out at me!

SRL, ick! LOL!

Andy, let us know (maybe on WC) how it goes with-the goldendoodle. They're supposed to be really good dogs. Sounds like you've got husband on your side already ...

 

[trinityroyal]

I have often decided against claims with-the ins company, but ours is not tied into car ins. I would look into that if I were you. "No Fair" screams out at me!

Fair or not, this seems to be the way things are set up with Ontario insurance companies. I maintain home insurance and car insurance separately, and this is one of the reasons. However, you get substantial discounts for having multiple policies with the same insurer, so there are trade-offs everywhere.

MamaOf5, I'm so glad that you were able to get your computer working, identify the bad clusters and formulate a plan for fixing or isolating them. Whew!

 

[Mamaof5]

Well, the hard drive is failing. Albeit, slowly but it's the only thing that was affected. It will cost me about 100 dollars to get a new drive and 5 dollars to get the disks to recovery the computer (Acer doesn't give the operating disks with their systems, isn't that stupid or what). It's lagging but it's working. In about 2 weeks we're getting the terrabyte drive and an external for back ups as well. Then the system will be fully back to par. Working with the manufacturer to see if they might replace it under warranty - I've seen Acer do it regardless of what happened to a system occasionally. Depends on the luck of the draw of course.

Apparently there will be new legislation for insurance (both car and home) coming into affect in September to "strengthen" the regulation of insurance (read grab more money from the people). *sigh* At least it's not too expensive and it still works for now. I'm waiting for the drive to go poof. Probably damaged the drive plates and needle when the system fell but the rest is okay. Could have been so much more expensive though. I keep reminding myself to just breath and I'll get through this.

 

[jlsanchez08]

Ahh yes, kids they are so much fun haha. My difficult child who is a complete and total handful beyond what most people around me have had to deal with in their lifetime decided to take a permanent marker and a pair of scissors to our brand new computer monitor so I managed to get the marker off with alcohol but the scratches are not going anywhere.

On another note:
I have stains all over my sons carpet from when my difficult child woke up at 2am and woke up the youngest in the house to make ice cream sundaes all over the carpet. We got to shampoo the carpet at 2:30am in our house that we had only bought the year before. Strawberry and chocolate syrup does not come out of carpet if it has been sitting for a while.

 

[Farmwife]

Sorry about your bad luck. Total bummer! Glad it was the smaller of the break downs and not the whole deal.

My difficult child used to be very "accident" prone except his accidents always seemed to happen with my stuff not his. hmmmmm?!?!? Problem stopped when I started making him replace things with his own money. (birthday and Christmas money saved in bank for a car)

There were my very rare heirloom melon vines that he "accidentally" weeded out of the garden.

3 of husband's French press coffee makers.

Plus dozens of other incidents...

Several drinking glasses "slipped", until we replcaed all our glasses with a mix of collectible glasses from the 70's and 80's. Now when he breaks an "Indiana Jones" glass or a "Battlestar Galactica" glass we all almost cry because they are impossible to find and so much fun to use.

As for locks, *sigh* we have them and we kick ourselves for forgetting to use them once in a while. It's not fun feeling like we live in a prison but it feels a lot better than when we have our privacy violated or something goes missing.

No insurance for all the aggravation.

 

[Mamaof5]

The only reason we have content insurance is because no insurance is against the law now in Ontario (both content ins and house ins). I'm kind of glad we do have content insurance though.

Drive is failing faster than I thought. I'd love to tell her that she has to pay for it but she's only 4.5 years old chronologically (developmentally she's 1 year old). I do do that with my older kids who do get an allowance though.

 

[TerryJ2]

I'd love to tell her that she has to pay for it but she's only 4.5 years old chronologically (developmentally she's 1 year old). I do do that with my older kids who do get an allowance though.


Reminds me of the time my easy child decided to "help" me illustrate a book on internal parasites. I had done intricate b&w drawings, and she used red marker, the only color that photographs as black for printing. I called the publisher in tears and he calmed me down and gave me a 2-wk extension. I ended up taking the illustrations to a professional printer, who somehow made a series of copies that turned the red into yellow, and then eventually, was able to overexpose the drawings until they were back to normal. Cost me a bit of profit, for sure.
But my daughter is truly artistic, and is now in college, double majoring in art and psychology.
Maybe your difficult child will become a home improvement specialist?

 

[Mamaof5]

*lol* I wouldn't be surprised Terry! I'm artistic myself (as you see in the sig, graphics artist). I'm also a writer too (horror & erotica genre). She may just be a home improvement or interior decorator in her future. I could see the kid going into a male oriented construction industry too - she's very tom boyish like mommy. *sigh* I know there are many more mishaps in the future waiting for us...one day at a time right?