to the things you can't have once you have kids. Matching glassware? Pffft.

Depending on your crew you can also count on not owning nice carpeting for a long while as well.

Not a week ago my husband looked at our glasses and asked if there was some way to get them to be clear again. From what I've read, it's about the water and the years of abuse in the dishwasher. I told him I planned to get new glasses once the boys were gone in the fall.

Of course, it's not their fault the glasses are murky. But I am missing several of the juice and water glasses thanks to them.

I really long for my kitchen table to be clear of all their stuff. I will miss them like crazy but I am trying to imagine a home without livestock in it.

Helps to break up mineral deposits.

You get tired of things breaking after a while so you go plastic.

1. A nice couch
2. Ball point pens I can actually find
3. Pencils I can actually find
4. Real house plants
5. Artificial house plants

I don't understand why I can't have these things.

I am not kidding.

I got rid of that and bought a sofa in which the only criterion was that it be difficult for him to damage it.

I can't put up a Christmas tree because he WILL knock it over. I have special screen protectors made of plexiglass for the patio door so he cannot ruin the screen.

I've lost many a security deposit because he's ruined the carpet.

When (if) I buy a house, it will be hardwood floors only.

And you may never get rid of the smell.

Tile might be a good option - but get dark color grout!

To my knowledge, he has never peed anywhere outside the litter box.

But I can't get him to use a scratching post to save my life.

With a cat we were given we got one similar to this:


The cat that it came with loved it!

There are various sizes, shapes, and angles of cat scratchers - maybe yours would prefer a reclining or flat scratcher rather than a post.

I gave her a log with bark on it to scratch after we moved and she had to be an indoor cat. That seemed to help with the adjustment. Got a fresh one about once every six to eight weeks. I have long known that if you live with pets, you have to have a vacuum cleaner in good working condition to get rid of the mess the bark made on the floor if carpeted. I also learned that wood stove pellets make good litter box filler, at $4 for a 40lbs. bag, it was a good idea. The pellets, then, were just sawdust formed into pellets with gelatin casing which breaks up on contact with fluids. We liked organic lifestyle of a sort.

My cat loves the things. Trader Joe sells them for about $7 but if you don't have a trader joe then Target has similar for about $10. He hasn't touched a piece of furniture since I got my first one.

http://www.amazon.com/Trader-Joes-Double-Scratcher-Organic/dp/B004R62PHE

already pre-cat scratched so we wouldn't care about fat cat ruining it.

And our lack of hair needed no brushes. We used two knives screwed together for scissors and lemons for batteries ...

What is it with kids/teens and those things? And, more importantly, WHERE DO ALL THE SCISSORS GO??? I swear I buy a new pair every few months adn there is not a trace of one in this house.

I would also add tape to your list.

I keep buying them and they disappear.

OMFG... My kid finally left a couple years back and I now have sole possession of all those things.

Life is good.

missing her EZ-Pass. I was riding with her the other day & we had to go thru the stop & get a ticket line then stop & pay in cash to get off the highway. That was a trip down memory lane.

my sister always had a pair in her kitchen marked MOM in big letters. No one was allowed to touch them. I thought that was so odd...until I had kids.

I kept a pair hidden for a while but they got found. I bought more and hid more. They disappeared. But somewhere around year 16, all my scissors came back! Now there are at least three pair in the kitchen, and three pair in a place I keep office stuff. I found a pair in the bathroom. They just keep turning up now!

My now 10yo has been disassembling pens for several years now.

He loses all the scissors and we could never have "extra" batteries.


As for the hair brushes either my Daughter loses them or our German Shepherd chews them up.

Don't get me started on the dog.

I put a label on it that said, "This stapler is not to leave Dad's office on pain of death"

Go with triple A

I figured out why I could never find one when I saw my husband toss a broken one back in the kitchen junk drawer. He had picked it up to write something, found it to be out of ink, so he PUT IT BACK IN THE DRAWER.

Grrrrrrrrrrr

staplers, scotch tape, calculators.

When my youngest daughter was in college, I took a math class. I had to buy a graphing calculator. They are expensive. My daughter came home and asked to borrow it for a class, to avoid the expense of another one. She had grown up quite a bit, because at least she asked!

And then I married a man who is worse than my children ever were.

Scissors, tape dispensers, staplers, rulers, you name it.

One day he came into my office/my room while I was there, and was actually 'shopping around'.
He looked at my CD holders (full of CDs), and said "I'm going to take these; I could really use them."
He was serious. I said "Um, they are full of MY things. Go shop for your own."

We get bags full of batteries at Christmas and our company picnic. Batteries and flashlights. Usually stuff where the package is a little damaged, bent or torn and they don't want them on the shelves.

You will find many other things that you will be missing as the grow.

Because the damn ducks and chickens eat them.