The E Space Story

The keyboard came! It's fixed. So to celebrate, here's where I admit total negligence and frustration. And certain puppy dog traits of my children. All in one post.

A few weeks ago, on a day before my right-hand girl came to live with us, naptime hit. Unfortunately, it was a day when Charlie had napped earlier than usual and so was awake when I was absolutely ready to crash and burn. But it was also a day when I knew David would be home early, in about twenty minutes.

So I set Charlie up with a pile of Kaplas on the floor by the couch and Henry up with a movie and I laid down with Henry sitting behind my knees and the sound of blocks being dumped and stacked and knocked over. I just needed to rest.

The problem is that I actually fell asleep and lost track of listening to where my children were.

I woke up what seemed like five seconds later to find David home. And he told me that he found Charlie sitting at the laptop. And that he had removed every last key from the keyboard.



I spent about forty-five minutes snapping back all the easy keys - the letters and numbers and most of the auxiliary keys, comparing the keyboard to a picture online to make sure I put the keys we never use in the right places. The smaller function keys and the space bar and a couple others that had additional metal hooks to match up underneath were beyond my patience and a couple of the letters wouldn't just snap on, so I left them for David to tackle with his tiny screwdrivers.

He spent an additional thirty or forty minutes doing the more technical re-attachment of the keys. Except for the space bar, which had a broken plastic hook where a little metal bar was supposed to fit into, all was back to normal.

But the next day, the space bar popped off and remained a little shifty. And the "E" key came off while the boys were playing on Webkinz world. Didn't bother them because the Webkinz don't require much typing.

Aaaaannnddd....Calvin enjoyed chewing on the "E" while he helped Henry decide what to buy from the Webkinz curio shop.

The thing is, when I saw it, I knew what and how it had happened - totally mindless bending the plastic and gnawing without thinking, "I have a keyboard key in my mouth." It just felt good to gnaw on it. Or something.

I didn't take a picture of the mangled "E," but if you've ever had a puppy, I know you can picture it. That's exactly what it looked like.

David was furious. So I had to remind him of the puppy comparison thing. He's the one that has made it on other occasions anyway. Like the holes in Henry's shirts. But that's another story.

I was a bit more calm, but very, very sorry, because it's really my fault - snoozing when there's a loose laptop around and two possible minutes for the two-year-old to find it and discover that the the keys come off. And then - the very next day! - not monitoring my boys' computer use more carefully to make sure that they are not teething (at age six and a half) on keys that pop off the keyboard.

Honestly, someone should put me away, dontcha think?

But hopefully after three weeks or more of keyboard handicapped-ness, I have learned my lesson and will more carefully consider aaalllll the possible consequences of trying to sneak in a nap.

Of course, now I have back up help to subsidize my nap taking. So nice. And I will be able to squeeze in some more blog posting, too. Happy days are here again.