Sol,

I had two girls. I can only think of two downsides in retrospect. I wanted a son so I'd have an excuse to buy and build the huge electric train set I never had as a kid. And second, neither of them has taken much interest in fishing, altho they seem quite pleased at my interest.

They had plenty of play dates, but zero princess parties, and money wasn't on the menu. My girls learned to ID any fish I brought home and tossed in the kitchen sink. They learned to name each fin, the gills, maxillary, pre-max, and got to poke the eyes with their fingers. Maybe that's why they're both natural science majors instead of social science.

Your girls can be a lot of fun. Look for the entertainment value.

When my girls were in high school, we had coed sleepovers. We knew where everyone was, and who they were with. It worked out too well. I don't believe in curfews, but my ex-wife had some issues. We cut a deal with the kids that if they weren't gonna' be home by midnight, they had to call in, tell us where they were, who they were with, where they were going (ya know they're going somewhere else as soon as they hang up), and what time they would be home. That worked pretty well. No way was I gonna' stay up half the night waiting for kids to come home. I mighta' had to get up early to go fishing.

Forget about the cleaning the room issue. Make your life easier. Let them have their rooms as their own domain. Let 'em keep it how they want it. Serious. You can always renovate when they grow up and move out. I told my girls that if I had to come in their rooms for any maintenance or whatever, I expected to be able to walk on the floor, or whatever they had on it - it's their risk, not mine.

Let me introduce you to the "box." And you can introduce it to your angels. They can drop their stuff wherever in the house they like, but if it's not in their room, and is instead in the main family part of the house, it better not be there when they go to bed. Any crap left out at night, instead of tripping over it, I put it in the "box." The box may be emptied on Monday and Thurday nights only. If their favorite, or all their shoes, or whatever ended up in the box - well, that's tough sh!t; they shouldn't leave it out. Within two weeks, I never had to deal with kid crap strewn all over the house ever again. Their own rooms were nightmares, however, under the rules of problem ownership, that wasn't my problem.

Kids can be fun, if you let it be.

Anything for a bro'.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.