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A Flurry Of Curiosity

Children have a wonderful curiosity about the world around them. And, like a typical 4 year old, there is no end to Thing 3’s curiosity.

And there is no end to his questions. From the moment he wakes until he finally drifts off to sleep, there is a constant stream of talking and questions.

Sometimes, he gets into what I call The Zone. It seems to happen when he’s in a good mood. There will be a flurry of random, curious, imaginative, unrelated questions and it will be impossible to keep a straight face.

Here is a sampling of The Zone from today. These were all said within just a few minutes. And these are just the ones we could remember afterwards.

Mommy, will you go to India with me?

Mommy, are we going to watch boxing?

Mommy, can I go inside a volcano?

Mommy, where do astronauts go after outer space?

Mommy, when does the library open?

Mommy, how do you play hockey?

Giants and Beanstalks

Fruit Snacks Thing 3: Mommy, can I climb the beanstalk up to the clouds with a giant?

SuburbanMommy: Sure. Do you know any giants?

Thing 3: Eli Manning!

Oh. And Thing 3 also likes to put fruit snacks on his face. Why? He says he is being Yoshi. No, it doesn’t make any sense. Except to Thing 3.

Honoring Our Presidents

Presidents Day means a day off from school and work. Well, a day away from the office at least. There is plenty of work.

We spent the afternoon bowling with SuburbanCousins. Followed by Sweet Frog frozen yogurt by the pound. And finally an impromptu game of freeze tag in the somewhat mild February weather.

A Disney First

We had a Disney first today. No, not that Disney first. I’m nowhere near ready for Disney World with the 4 Things, although I am sure that day will come. No, today we experienced our first Disney On Ice.

It was a milestone in that we took all four kids to the event. We rarely do anything that involves the entire family. It’s usually divide and conquer planned around nap schedule.

The day went well. Thing 3 probably enjoyed it the most. Thing 1 was too busy eating donuts and cotton candy and popcorn to notice he was watching Disney characters and not a sporting event.

Thing 4 was very squirmy and didn’t want to stay seated, but all things considered she was well behaved. Again, the donuts didn’t hurt.

And this is what Thing 3 looks like, wearing his Mickey Mouse crown that comes free with a $12 cotton candy, after a 2 hour ride home because it took 45 minutes to get out of the parking garage and we had to stop at SuburbanUncle’s house so Thing 3 could go potty.

What Do You Have In There

You know the expression What do you have in there? Rocks?

Well, in the case of Thing 3, the answer would be yes.

This is what I pulled from his coat pocket today. He said he was collecting “treasures”. Tomorrow, when he finds out his treasures are gone, I’m sure he will pick up some new ones. I can’t wait.

It reminds me of the movie The Shawshank Redemption. It may take him a few years, but Thing 3 is digging his way out of preschool.

First Tooth

Thing 2 is anxiously awaiting his first visit from the tooth fairy tonight. Let’s hope she doesn’t get too tired tonight and forget like when Thing 1 lost a tooth.

Born To Perform

I don’t know how I missed this video until now. Thing 2 had his first grade Thanksgiving performance in November. I stayed home with Thing 3 and Thing 4, but SuburbanMommy recorded it. Maybe as she was focused on the video camera, she may not have even noticed what he was doing.

This is exactly why they invented video cameras. Before watching, you might want to refresh yourself on Thing 2’s prior history on the stage.

I love the way he’s seemingly distracted by the microphone, and making goofball faces, but when it’s time for his line, he confidently grabs the mic and delivers right on queue!

Don’t Lose Your Digital Memories

Over the last eight years, we have amassed a large amount of digital pictures and videos.? 132 gigabytes to be exact.? And the number keeps growing.? What to do with all those memories?? How do I make sure they are never lost?

For a long time, I’ve been keeping them on the hard drive of our home computer.? I have an external hard drive where occasionally I copy everything.? But what if there is a fire or flood in the house?? Both would be lost.?? I needed a better solution.

One low budget idea that came to mind was to keep the external drive at a friend’s house.? That way it would be safe from a disaster at my house, but it would be a pain to keep it in sync with the latest pictures and videos. ? A better idea would be to store them in the “cloud”, using a backup service to copy files to a hosted computer that is secure.? But all the online backup services I looked at were expensive, costing hundreds of dollars a year to maintain.

crashplan_logo Enter CrashPlan.?? (Disclosure: I received a free one year subscription to CrashPlan+ to write this review, but what I put in the review is completely my own).? CrashPlan has the features I’d expect from a backup service.? Install a client to your desktop, select which folders you want to backup, and it runs continuously in the background keeping your files in sync with the backup location.? But here’s where it gets interesting.? The backup location can be 1) Another folder like an external hard drive, 2) Another computer anywhere like a friend’s house, or 3) Online at CrashPlan’s computers.? The first two options are completely free.? If you don’t have a trustworthy friend you can pay a few dollars a month for option 3.

Your backed up files are available online, to download whenever you need.? You can even restore the files as they existed at any point in time, which is handy if you mistakenly overwrite a file, or if tiny fingers on the keyboard manage to delete a file.? There is even a free iPhone or Android app to let you access files remotely.

If you have lots of digital pictures and videos, you need a backup plan.? I suggest you take a look at CrashPlan.