As a proud and geeky mother, I enjoy taking note of times when our children display moments of intelligence and effective reasoning ability. 

Yesterday wasn't one of those.

Recently, we put in a pool.  No, not a luxurious, in-ground, heated, filtered pool.  But rather a well used inflatable pool that I got for $2 at last weekend's garage sale extravaganza.  It was hot, I was desperate.

So yesterday, we finally got around to filling it up.  Step one, of course, is to blow it up (as in "inflate", not "explode").  I told the 3 of them to figure out how best to inflate the thing as I hadn't looked into it yet.

The three attacked the problem, and bicycle pumps, duct tape, vacuum cleaners and the like were acquired for the job.  After a while, the pool was still a limp lump. 

"Nothing's happening", they arrived.  "We need an air compressor/pump adaptor/mumbo jumbo", they continued.  I looked into it and found them trying to pump air into a hole of about the diameter of a quarter.  Strange, I figured it would have a standard sized valve.  By then, the brilliant offspring had given up.

Further investigation showed me that they were trying to fill up the...

drain.

Yes, they were basically trying to fill the entire earth's atmosphere up with air, utilizing a bicycle pump. 

I found the real valves, and enthusiastic pumping ensued (well now, that phrase should attract some interesting hits from the keyword search feature).  I soon had the $2 garage sale pool open for business.  They were amazed.  Wolfgang even took a picture:

Photography, not cutting off people's heads -wise, isn't a strong suit either.