Just when I think we’ve got Ace figured out, we take two steps back and he’s screaming again.  We thought eliminating dairy had helped, but then it stopped working.  We thought reflux meds helped, but then they stopped working.  We thought that the Amby beds helped, but then they stopped working.  We thought that the chiropractor helped, but then it stopped working.  I just don’t get it.

However, as soon as I had made an exasperated post on Connected Moms,  he had over an hour of happy alert time, and had another spurt this evening.  But we cannot figure out what it is that happens when he’s happy.  If I knew, I’d do it all of the time!  I just hope we either figure it out for good, or this passes soon.  It’s so tiring, and some days you want to hold him and comfort him all day…  and other times you just want to lock him in a room to cry.  And then you feel guilty for being frustrated.  It’s an endless cycle.

In other news, I started back to work on Monday.  But let me back track so you get the whole story…

On December 7th, I — er, Santa — ordered Calista an XO Laptop for Christmas.  It was a limited time offer where if you made a laptop donation (cost: $200) you could then purchase a child’s laptop for yourself for an additional $200.  It sounded great — Calista gets an awesome gift and we help out a child in a third-world country in the process.

Well, Christmas came and went and no word from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child, the organization who makes the XO).  Santa left a note apologizing, and saying when the elves were done with it, it would be sent.

The site then said US orders would be received by January 15th.  I made the mistake of telling Calista that Santa called and said her laptop was on its way, and of course it didn’t arrive.

I called the place to confirm my order and they said they couldn’t look up my order at that time, but if I had gotten a receipt, then my order was in process.  Um, ok.

Then I get an email saying I will get an email in two days with my order status.  Cool.

Three days later — not two as indicated — I got a message saying that my order was being processed and to watch for tracking info.  It was now February, so I was excited and relieved.

Another couple of days later, I get an apologetic email saying demand was greater than supply and more laptops would be arriving in late February to early march.  They gave a number where you could call to cancel if you wanted.

Skip and I decided to cancel and get her a different laptop.  Then Skip suggested that I upgrade my work laptop and give Calista my old one.  Sounded like a win-win to me!

Calista and I went out on Friday night and picked out my new laptop.  Saturday, I spent the whole day trying to get the two to communicate via the network, which never did happen.  Sunday, I gave up the networking idea and started burning CDs.  27 CDs later, my data was all transferred.

On Monday, I downloaded some 1,500+ emails that I had received during my maternity leave and got them off of the server, on to my new machine and all organized.  The boys co-operated and I got a good bit accomplished, and felt good about my day.

That evening, I had some additional work to do, so I closed my laptop, took it upstairs and opened it back up.  Nothing.  The lights were on, but the screen was blank.  I couldn’t even CTRL+ALT+DEL.

No big deal, I figured, just a glitch.  I forced it to shut down and then restarted it.  I got some disk read error.  Weird.

I tried again — disk read error.  So then I tried to boot in Recovery Mode.  All I got was a blue screen.  Hmmm.

I booted again, this time into disk repair.  The results of my disk scan were:

“18008: Replace Hard Drive”

Uh, excuse me?  This laptop was barely three days old!  I called Geek Squad (Best Buy’s repair service) and the guy assured me that if I went to the store the next day, they would give me a new laptop, as well as recover and transfer all of my data.  It would take about a day.

First thing Tuesday morning, I head to Best Buy and head up to the Geek Squad counter, where after telling what happened, I am informed that it will cost $99 to have them look at the machine to see if they can retrieve my data.

GeekSquadSayWhat?

Yes, they wanted me to pay them to see if they could recover data off of a lemon that they sold me!  I stood firm, however, and tried to reason — ok, beg — the guy to just look at it quickly and see if it was worth a try or if it was hosed.  He told me there were 16 machines ahead of mine and it would be 2 days before he could look at it.  Well, I’m no dummy and I know it would take all of 2 minutes just to see if it was worth a shot, so I told him instead of wasting his time arguing with me, he could just run a diagnostic on it and then I’d leave.  So he did.  And the drive was fried — no data to be recovered.

I returned home with a new laptop, and realized that those 1,500 client emails were gone from the server and unrecoverable from the bad drive.  Ouch.

Fortunately, the world’s best web host, TigerTech.net, worked hard and restored back ups for me so I could get all of my emails back.  I was FINALLY able to get some work done on Wednesday.

Oh, and I called for a refund on my XO laptop, which they said they would do “as soon as possible” and I STILL haven’t gotten any money back!  Their little project was great in theory, but piss poor in execution.  Hmpf.  Calista loves having Mommy’s computer anyhow.  I wiped it clean and set up her favorite online sites and Santa called and said since I gave her my old computer, he’d send her a mouse…  which he did, plus a doggy mouse pad.  :)

Work has been hard, though.  I generally get the boys changed and fed, take them downstairs and entertain them while I eat breakfast.  Then they get changed and eat again, and hopefully nap.  I work while they nap, then we do it again and then I work again during second nap.  After that, I work after the kids are all asleep, and have been up working as late at 3 am.  Not fun when you have night feedings and early morning ahead of you, but I have to pay the bills somehow!

Well, I’ve rambled so long that my neck hurts.  Guess I will go for now.  Until next time, check out Cronck.com, I’ve uploaded a ton of pictures lately.

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