My youngest's toys are still in her room. My oldest (7) had his toys in his room until he turned 4. Then they went to a dedicated playroom. (It's also a library and office, so not dedicated to JUST being a playroom.) Until then, he took out individual toys and mostly played in whatever room I was in, but since we moved to where he has tons of friends, he's matured more, and his sister has gotten old enough to really play with, he's really benefited from the larger space. Only fragile toys stay in the bedroom now. The playroom's nice because there are frequently up to 5 kids in it. They play, in order of frequency: 1) Outside; 2) Playroom; 3) Basement ballroom, which is treated by them as a kind of gym, too; 4) His bedroom Inside toys are NOT allowed to be taken outside. When his friends sneak them out, I have them doing push ups and laps around the house in punishment, as they always ruin or lose his toys. He's learned to say "no " firmly, finally. The last place is my least favorite place, since the other kids have a tendency to break things. :-( My son builds models, etc., so someone can wreak a lot of havoc in a short period of time, and not all children are very well behaved. Plus, with the books, there really isn't room for all the toys even in a fairly large room--it's floorspace more than wall space that's the problem, because by the time the 4th kid gets in there, they're hanging from the bunks. A LOW bin system has been the most effective here--two bins high is as high as littles can reach. My eldest could now reach to 3 bins, if he need to. We used to use open baskets for storage, but as he got more dexterous and the youngest got more troublesome, we switched to modular plastic containers that work very well. They also do not collect dust the way open baskets, even ones that fit pretty well into a case, do. Colleen--"not a good idea in this day and age" as opposed to WHEN, exactly? Do you have any idea what the rate of non-familial abductions actually is? You are exposing her to thousands of times the risk with every car ride. And childhood obesity will kill hundreds of thousands more kids prematurely as they age, and it's rooted in the sedentary lifestyles of the new "outside is a SCARY PLACE, children!" generation. (As an amusing aside.... What's the chance that a child could get injured at home unsupervised versus injured or killed in a car accident? Looking at it from a simple standpoint of risk calculation, it'd be safer to leave a *TWO-year-old* locked in a childproofed bedroom than to take him anywhere in a car. The real basis for these kinds of laws isn't to make people safe but to make them FEEL safe, which are two very, very different things. I may follow such laws, but it's with a knowledge that they are stupid.)

1) What is the first thing you'd do or buy for your home . . . or would you sell it and buy another? If so, where? DH and kids would never want to move. But if they were agreeable, I'd move to a house in our neighborhood that had larger bedrooms, a real guest room, a larger living room, a real home office, and a really nice finished basement with real windows and a door to the back yard. And a screen porch overlooking a not-too-big, but bigger-than-ours back yard. 2) What is the first thing you'd do or buy for your spouse or SO? I know that many of us have kids, but to keep this game reasonably short, let's not go there now . . . so just your spouse/SO: A new BMW. 3) What the FIRST foreign country you'd plan a trip to . . . and do NOT tell us "around the world!" (LOL) . . . let this be a more specific answer: Does St. Bart's count as a foreign country? 4) What first charity would you donate a significant amount of money to, or start one of your own for what cause? This is too hard! I'd have to split over several. 5) What is the FIRST big thing you'd do for YOU? Hire a housecleaner once a week and a chef to make dinner every night! 6) OK, are you still following the rules ;^D ?? I know there would be many other purchases and trips, and we'd all save a big chunk of the money, too, but what ONE other thing would you spend some that money on? My 3 kids' college tuitions. Just starting on DS #1 this fall! Can't imagine what it will cost when we get to DD, who is still only 9.

Oh Oly, we share the same type of grandson, both with kind souls and not interested in sports. He's 11 & still kisses me when no one's looking. :) Small town school but not too small. My two boys played baseball from Little League through high school. We only have baseball and basketball. DS1 has a boy and a girl, the girl is 9 and is the athlete in the family, she just finished basketball, and softball begins soon. She is fast as a whip, DGS is not. DGS has no interest in sports, he did two years of T-ball and although he was decent it wasn't his thing. But the kid is smart and inherited his dad's engineering brain, which they both got from my dad but it skipped me. lol DGS is winning blue ribbons (2 in February!) with things he's built out of Lego's, & he also gets to go to the Lego conferences out of town, which is through school. He's flourishing in Quiz Bowl and today he's one of the finalists in another town competing. His parents don't care that he's not in sports which makes me happy. IMO, kids with kind souls need to be nurtured, not pushed. KWIM? He still plays like a little boy, has lots of friends and they don't care if he plays sports or not. Oh, building friendships now is important. He's a great Kayacker which he learned at day camp in the summers, so I guess that's a sport. Even if our GS's did play sports it doesn't make them immune from bullying, or being a bad player, etc. The boy's self-esteem comes first. My gut tells me the boys probably do wish they could play but they know deep down they probably wouldn't be as good as the other boys. During basketball season for DGD she was a knockout on the court, getting all kinds of accolades from the family, and it worried me that her brother would never get the same attention. But he is, by the other things he does. He even got his two 1st plafce blue ribbon crafts in our local paper! Glory, he got some glory. One last thing, our grandsons are still young and maybe someday they'll want to play a school sport. It's never too late unless it's a huge school where you have to try out.

I read to both my son and daughter when they were growing up . I also had books and magazines in the home and had a delightful assortment of children's literature to enjoy. My daughter was always a voracious reader and continues to be as an adult. Her three children also grew up as enthusiastic readers, always having a book on hand to enjoy. On the other hand, my son hated to read and preferred sports and creative projects . As an adult he reads to gain information on any topic as opposed to reading fiction for enjoyment. His son ( my grandson ) detests reading and avoids having to crack open a book if at all possible. Like his father, he reads for information not enjoyment. He's now a freshman in high school and I wonder if he will finally be required to read ?! It's a different world...everything is high speed and instant gratification. Reading, for many, feels like a waste of time.