When I first started perusing food blogs looking for recipes I would bookmark the pages I was interested in. The ultimate plan was to add the recipes into the document I was compiling on my computer of all my recipes. It quickly became clear that having all of my recipes in a word document was unrealistic, especially since I like to browse recipes by photo. All those photos made it slow to load and the document became unwieldy. I searched for and found a recipe program, BigOven, that was able to do everything I wanted it to and more. I could add a photo right next to a recipe! I could even rate recipes, make notes, easily it scale up or down, search by ingredient, or word, or tag. It was wonderful. But most importantly, it had photos with the recipes. I was set! Until along came Little Man.
I don't know how kids do it. I am sure that anyone who has any experience at all with kids knows that electronics and kids do not go well together. One evening I walked away from the computer and into the kitchen with my BigOven program up and running. At the time Little Man couldn't climb up onto the computer chair (the wheels confounded him) and so to make the computer safe while it was running, we had taken to placing the keyboard and mouse on top of the monitor if we needed to walk away for a few minutes. But I forgot. I heard him clicking and tapping away from the next room and I hurried in, wondering how much damage he had done to the current recipe and reassuring myself that I would be able to remember most of the ingredient measurements and if not then I could surely find it again online. I checked and the recipe was still there in its entirety. Whew! Safe! He must not have caused any trouble.
Then I noticed there was no photo next to the recipe. Odd. But easy to remedy. I wouldn't even need the exact photo that had been there before as long as I found one that showed the dish. It wasn't until a little while later that I realized the extent of what he had done. He had somehow managed with just a few clicks and taps at the computer to delete over 1,300 pictures! It took me weeks to sort through the hidden archives on my computer and manually paste each one back into the correct recipe. (This was when I discovered BigOven's very important "backup" feature). Somehow, not all of the photos were anywhere to be found on my computer and I ended up searching for each of the several hundred remaining recipes online for an appropriate photo. The whole process took much longer than I care to remember. Weeks. But I eventually got a photo for each recipe. This was important to me, how can I search for things that look appealing if there are no pictures?
Little Man must have inherited my desire for photos because he LOVES looking at pictures. He always wants to be on the wrong end of the camera when I am trying to take his picture because he wants to see! I came across an inexpensive little key chain digital photo frame and thought that since it was meant to be tossed into purses and pockets along with bunches of keys, it just might stand up to Little Man for a while. The other day we needed to travel an hour and a half to a family birthday celebration and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to bring in the car to distract/entertain him. We were traveling along for a little while before he started getting antsy. So I handed him back his photo frame, full of pictures that I had loaded on for him. Not even half a minute later he was asking me where the pictures went. He had managed in less than 30 seconds to delete the whole album. It would have taken me or Hey, Babe a heck of a lot longer to intentionally figure out what he had done.
Tonight I came into the room to find Little Man holding my cell phone and pressing buttons. Curious who he may have accidentally called I took it from him to check. What was the option showing on the screen?
Delete All Contacts?
I finally got between him and destruction in the nick of time. Kids sure have a way with technology, don't they?
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