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Main Page Site Index Getting Pregnant Pregnancy Parenting Pregnancy and Parenting Journals Fertility Nutrition Pregnant Moms Morning Sickness Women's Health Child Health	Discipline and Disk Drives by Cheryl Gochnauer Work-at-home moms often enjoy the best of both worlds. They can be with their children and pursue some work-for-pay at the same time. Of course, the balance between these two endeavors isn't necessarily split 50-50. For instance, a two-year-old definitely needs more moment-to-moment monitoring than a five-year-old. So you can reasonably expect to get proportionately more work done as the kids get older. By the time they hit elementary school, you're practically home-free. Then the preteens hit, and you're back to square one. But I digress. "I have encountered a new type of computer virus," writes Kami, a Homebodies reader. "I call it 'The Toddler Terror Virus.' "I spend a lot of time at the computer, something Hailey (age 21 months) has inherited. She likes to play her JumpStart Baby CD. She will climb up on the desk chair and pound on the desk until I set it up for her. She even likes to push the button to open the CD drive. I try to discourage her from doing that. "Last week, I found a 3.5 inch disk in the CD drive, and another day, a cracker was in there. I think 'Saltine in the CD Drive' is not covered by the warranty. "I have reached the point where I have a steady stream of work, and it looks like this will continue for most of the year. So I was very concerned when I could not get a zip disk in the zip drive yesterday to backup some files. It looked like something was hanging down, as if the zip drive had gotten unaligned with the door. "I called my computer store, but they were backlogged for two weeks. There' s no way I can be without my computer for two weeks. "Determined to fix the problem myself, I took a small flashlight and looked in the zip drive. I found the source of the problem. It seems a curious toddler had stuck my library card into the zip drive. "I was able to remove it with a pair of tweezers, and it works fine. As you might imagine, our next purchase after the new dishwasher is going to be a desk with enclosed space for the tower part of our computer -- one that we can put a child-proof lock on! "I doubt any hardworking office dweller has ever had to deal with this type of computer virus!" That's true, Kami. But I bet you'd still choose this little bug over Y2K anyday. You can e-mail Cheryl at cheryl@homebodies.org or visit her website at www.homebodies.org. Her new book, "So You Want to Be a Stay-at-Home Mom," is available at your favorite bookstore or online at www.ivpress.com. Copyright 1999 Cheryl Gochnauer.