Help! I need a play pen, and No! I don't mean an activity yard!

I'm beginning to see why play pens are on almost every baby registry from Target to Babies R Us. I'm also beginning to wonder why I gave mine away. I'm thinking of all the things i'd be willing to trade to get that bad boy back and give myself a little bit of peace and a lot less clean up time. If you've been to a baby shower lately, a deluxe model play yard almost always tops the list. But nooooo, I had to be one of those moms who wasn't going to limit her babies. Uh uh. What kind of mom would i have been if I had corralled all of their curiosity and inquisitive nature? I couldn't force them to play with ACTUAL toys that were made for them instead of the contents of my wallet. Nope, cruel and unusual punishment. Something back then told me play yards made for bad moms, so i gave away that little piece of heaven to the first available taker, promising not to think badly of the one who so desperately took it off my hands.

OK, that was nine years and three babies ago, and after cleaning up an entire loaf of bread from the carpet (again)and fishing an unused roll of toilet paper from the boys' potty, I'm questioning my sanity and counting the dollar bills in my wallet, searching the house for the best way to rearrange what we now have to make it fit an oh-so-marvelous square of plastic and netting. I mean, I should look at the positives, right? Think how much concentration time Tate would have to actually put all those shapes into the correct openings on the little canister if he weren't free to wander the house. He would be able to link all those plastic beads together to make a . . um . . . umm . . . to make something creative. I could actually leave the pennies on the floor and not have to lean over to pick them up after a long day of Step classes and vacuuming (oh who am I kidding, i just suck those copper coins up the Dyson, anyway). But the bathroom door wouldn't have to stay shut, and i wouldn't have to hide the toilet paper in the basement. The bottom two pantry shelves would actually have FOOD on them. I wouldn't worry about the resale value of our house if I added a top lock to EVERY door in here.

But it's not just for my sanity and a decrease in housework that a play pen, er yard, would be a great asset. There are safety issues to consider. Tate can now reach the door handles and since he only has to pull down to open the door, he's been beating me to the mailbox every afternoon. Cords dangle from every end table, and the big boys aren't always meticulous in picking up their Legos and Magnetix pieces, definite choking hazards. His little fingers can also reach the top of the kitchen counters, so that loaf of bread, hot pan handle, and cell phone charger dangling just centimeters from his reach really don't stand a chance. Kind of like me in this argument.

I'm pretty much the only one on Tate's side here, considering that Daddy's cell phone went missing about three months ago and Tate was the last person seen with it. But as much as I can envision a CLEAN house, with no pots and pans to stumble over, no shampoo bottles in the playroom, and no late night remote control searches before Pawn Stars (can you imagine if it were SEC season yet?), I just can't let myself do it. As crazy as it sounds, (and really haven't i proven myself just that already) I enjoy finding destruction and room remodels as I round the corners to areas i haven't been in lately. Plus, I would never have gotten the awesome photograph of him surrounded by toilet paper on the bathroom floor if he had been "penned in." I would never receive special gifts like toothpaste, alarm clocks, and DVD's on running a 50 defense if he were spending the afternoon in a box.

I'm sure there will come a time when penning in one of my children will be more tempting than it is today, when my main goal in life will be to protect them from the grown up world: first date, driver's license, first curfew violation,(gulp) college. So even though my body is forever in bend-over-and-pick-up position and my work load is on the rise, I'm glad I didn't stick those babies "out of the way;" i would have missed out on so much.