Under Siege

Nephew Benjamin had his first birthday party recently (ok, it was a couple weeks ago, but I've been on vacation and, well, ya ...)

My baby sister bought one of those inflatable castle-shapped Jump-N-Gyms off ebay (she gets a lot of stuff from ebay!), and her kids got to play around in it for a day. But it seemed to have sprung a leak on the eve before the big party. The leak was cleverly patched with duct tape, proving once again that duct tape is the ultimate, versatile, engineering tool. After several more kids (namely, my three sons) joined the collection of (much younger) kids already inside, however, well ... you can see the consequences yourself.

The hole grew larger, the castle deflated in several different directions all at once, and the walls came tumbling down. Now you can't tell from the picture, but there are actually a half-dozen or so children under that heap. One concerned parent (nice legs, cute butt!) is checking on them, while this concerned parent was taking pictures. That's my oldest son's hand sticking up in the far, left corner. Ahhhh, to be 8 again!

The castle was never the same after this collapse. If all the children vacated the structure, it would fully inflate in seconds, but as soon as 2-3 got back in side, it became a crumpled heap again. Bummer ... I was kinda looking forward to going inside for a tumble myself. Yeah, I'm still a kid.

Happy 1st Birthday, Benjamin! We had fun!!