Q: Can't restore my iphone 5

hi,

after a number of bad passcodes, my iphone erased itself (thnks to my 5 year old son)

when i now try to restore and put back a backup, i can't get past the 'try to activate iphone' step.

the error message is like: can't reach the authentication server etc and try later.

i've been trying since yesterday.

please help:

is it the server? (and is it down for this long a time)

is it my iphone?

is it me?

regards,