I had my first pond when I was about 5 years old. We lived on a farm and there was an old farm pond about 2oo yards in back of our barn. I found I could "play" behind the barn out of sight from the house and then sneak back to the pond. I went back there as often as I could. I only got caught once, got yelled at and told not to go there. So I got better at sneaking. I totally could have died back there...but the risk was well worth it imo. It taught me so much and got me interested in learning. People today are starting to consider the possibility that we're over protecting our kids. Park where kids can use tools, build fires, do what kids do. But to the question... Here is my Kinder Pond. I built this for the neighborhood kids because they were always want to see my ponds in my backyard and to play in them. I've seen kids drink water out of it. Yeah, sure could make them sick. So could the cat poo they picked up and ate. So could licking their shoes. So could... To make this durable and reasonably safe I did the following. Made it shallow. Just 3" for most and 10" in the center. That also made it a great bird bath which was unexpected and really great for bird watching. Kids like watching birds too. Added a wide stream. Kids love to build dams so I didn't want a stream that was right to the edge of it's banks. If they were going to dam it and overflow the banks I wanted to make sure they had to work at it. I added a small waterfall. The sound of water is attractive to kids and other wildlife. It has to be strong enough to stand on. I used EPDM liner and concrete over that. Bare line and kids I don't think would be good. They would pull it up to see what its was or what was under it. So no visible liner. I mortared all rocks in place. Being shallow means not a lot of water which is a problem. I sure didn't want the pump visible in the pond. You think raccoons are inquisitive, kids have them beat. So I buried a 55 gal plastic drum about 5' away from the pond/stream. A pipe went from the 10" deepest spot in the pond to the drum using a bulkhead fitting on the drum (Uniseals are great). Pump went into the drum set on some bricks so it wasn't right on the bottom. Power cord went thru conduit to GFI outlet with a locked steel cover. A hose from the pump went underground to the stream top. No visible pipes. I built a very heavy cover for the drum and screwed thru that into the side of the drum. The drum is the dangerous part so that had to be secure. I made the top out of plastic decking so it weighed about 40 lbs which by itself is difficult for kids to lift. The drum was set low so the top as a bit below grade making removal more difficult. I also added an auto fill to the drum. A float valve that got its water from a sprinkler valve on a timer set for 2 minutes per day. If the float valve failed, and they do, the most water that would be wasted was 2 minutes worth per day. In the pond the 10" low point was formed into a rectangle. I made a skimmer basket type deal with PVC pipe and shade cloth that fit into the formed concrete rectangle. That stopped leaves, sticks, rocks from getting into the pipe going to the drum. It ran 24/7, never was green and it never had a string algae problem. Maybe I was just lucky, maybe that most of the water spent so much time in the totally dark drum helped. I didn't ever see mosquito larvae in this pond. Don't know why. Another option which I've seen kid enjoy are bogs. Pond or stream that maybe at lease 12" deep and filled with pea gravel. Water level can vary from just below the surface to as deep as you like above the gravel. Like a wet sand box. Kids can build streams, dig, do whatever they want. You can run a hose, or several hose on the surface so the kids can move them, build water falls, or whatever. I'd keep the hoses near the center and short enough so they could be move to outside the bog.

As far as I am concerned, NO. You may want to look up (google) the chemicals they are putting on. Over time most cause cancer, nuerological damage, fertility issues organ damage, etc. herbicides and especially chemical pesticides are designed to make living things die or sterile. People are living things. you might want to check out organic alternatives, gardensalive.com is a pretty straight forward catalog. treated lawns are bad for dogs too, as they roll, lay on them, and eat them. Kids then cuddle with the dog, and so on. On a grander scale, all the chemicals are washed away into our water supply and rivers causing damage to the entire community. Sorry to come on strong, I had cancer once and feel that I will do anything to keep anyone else from the pain of that. I really feel that lawn chemicals serve no purpose what so ever, they actually sterilize the soil, the salts and chemicals kill all the microbacteria and other living things in the soil, so over time, you will need more and more for anything green to survive in your yard. I'm may be really granola, but once you read up on soil structure, it is really mindblowing what is going on under your lawn. It is one of the few things that makes me believe in intelligent design. Please read up and make a decision... Thanks, Harriet

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.)

Caroline, I love your 'Great Aunt Matilda' thing.... wouldn't it be fun to make an entire book like that? I'm thinking photos, especially if the time period could be identified, names, and stories! Stories told either about or 'by' the person in the photo. 100% fictional of course. I'd do it in a big (preferably old) scrapbook. My DH and I both love old stuff and digging out treasures at garage sales and second hand stores. This might be something we could do together this summer. Last summer, we bought a old trunk/wardrobe. The kind people used to carry on ships. The mother of the woman we bought it from had used it when she came to the US from hawaii, to marry this woman's dad who was shipping home from the service. We have information on the year, where she came into the US, how she traveled to Michigan, etc. What a treasure!