Sometimes, I feel its impossible to keep up around here. Not with the animals, projects, and chores; but with 4 kids! In our world, four kids is not very many at all; I think the family average between my siblings, even just with my four is Seven kids. I really brought the average down, in fact, my brother and sister have so many kids that nobody is really sure how many there are any more. But in my house, 4 seems like a lot when they are little Dynamos of Destruction.
For example, my eldest requested a basketball. No problem, get online and order a basketball; 6.99 from Walmart.com, wait until you have 50.00 dollars worth of dog food, peanut butter, etc in order to get free shipping, and four days later, Viola! Basketball! Just one problem, it comes deflated, and we don't have a pump. No problem, 4.99 from Walmart.com, wait until you have 50.00 dollars worth of dog food, peanut butter, etc in order to get free shipping, and Seven days later, Viola! Basket ball pump! Only problem, I didn't air it up RIGHT THEN AND THERE, so my oldest gets impatient (if it would have turned out better, I would call this "self-motivated") and tries to pump it up herself. Most 14 year old kids know how to air up a basketball, but farm life has never really pushed me in the direction of any. sport. ever. So she didn't know about switching out the balloon-blower-cone end out for the needle, and CRAMMED it into the brand new basketball, thereby forcing the little black rubber thing completely into the deflated ball, ruining said new ball.
To top it all off, we learn of this by getting a text while on a date, complete with video of her doing it, all the while complaining about (albeit politely) how dumb her parents are because we don't know how to buy decent sports equipment. Grrrr.
So, I order another basketball, 6.99 from Walmart.com, wait until you have 50.00 dollars worth of dog food, peanut butter, etc in order to get free shipping, and ? days later, Viola! Basketball! Just one problem; in the meantime the Captains of Chaos have figured out how to install the needle onto the pump and installed it. In the process of waiting for the new ball to show up, the youngest decides that the pump looks just like a little crutch, and begins stumping around on it. You got it; SNAP goes the needle, about the same time the new, deflated ball arrives. At this point, it occurs to me that my brother and sister have, in order, either 2 times the amount, or 3 times the amount of kids as I do.
How do they ever get their basketballs inflated?
