We can't have nice things

Fruit Ninja is a game where you pretend to slice fruit with a sword on a screen, iPad, etc.  The more fruit you slice, the more points you win.  My children decided to play “fruit ninja” on our television with a pen and a nail file yesterday.  This resulted in deep gouges across the entire screen.  Of course this has happened the day before the Super bowl and we are having 6 of Andy’s cadets over to watch on our now distorted screen.  I was almost physically sick over this.  The TV is not that old either.  All I could think is “this is why we can’t have nice things”.  Andy and I have had the ‘we can’t have nice things’ conversation before.  We had a dining room set that was purchased at a garage sale, then used by my uncle, then my grandparents and then inherited by us when we moved to Oklahoma.  We made an agreement that when he got promoted to major that we would get a new dining room set.  In the time between making this agreement and him actually getting promoted, we had children.  I realized that getting my dream dining room was out of the question.  Our dining room table has huge gouges in it from the kids stabbing it with a fork.  I made a compromise that I would get a new hutch and cheap Ikea chairs and keep the old table until they would stop ‘forking it’.  We now have an entirely mismatched set and I am still waiting on my ‘fancy’ table and chairs.  I got a new couch while Andy was deployed sometime after having Addison and Drew.  I paid a million extra dollars for the highest grade of fabric that the store claimed was ‘kid proof’. I also got the extra warranty where they will come and clean the couch for you a handful of times.  The couch is stained by milk, juice, cheese crackers, you name it.  The fabric has held up well if you actually clean it.  The process to get your couch cleaned under the warranty is a nightmare and is not even covered for crayon, marker, etc.  I found this out the hard way involving a small child and a sharpie.  The carpet is equally stained.  They have broken or destroyed almost every toy they have owned and most of their clothes have holes or paint all over them.  Again, this is why we can’t have nice things.  I don’t think they do any of this maliciously.  They are just kids and my kids tend to be a bit wild.  They play a lot and they play rough.  I am okay with this.  What I do want to know is when does this phase end?  High School?  When they are out of the house?  I am not sure.  Until then I guess we will just deal with the scratched, the dirty and the stained.