Not long ago, I bought 4 colour-coded baskets to be placed on the bookshelves for the "treasures" that belong to each of the kids. This was especially done for the sake of the older two who have personal toys which they prefer not to share with others.
However, the younger two are now tall enough to easily reach the door knob and open the shelf doors and access the forbidden items, much to the dismay of the elder children. It takes up too much of my time to mediate among the kids when somebody took something without permission, and worse, damaged it. Apart from that, Joram was also constantly rummaging through the stationary drawers of the older ones and getting into various trouble. The youngest boy was also very often blamed for tearing up the pictures or craft work which the other siblings made.
So I thought, enough is enough. I invested in drawers with individual locks: one column for the stationary and artwork, another for their precious things. The older three wear their keys as necklaces and become totally responsible for their own belongings. I left the bottom-most drawer unlocked for Joram's personal toys. He is utterly delighted with it, taking great pride in keeping his favourite items properly inside. The hilarious thing is I actually also caught him secretly trying to open the rest of the drawers to no avail. Hiak hiak hiak... He can't be up to his usual mischief anymore!
While I was at it, I also bought a cabinet specially for the children's bags. There are just so many of them: school bags, weekend bags, BSF bags, ballet bag, bags which were gifts from friends... I was starting to have a hard time looking for places to keep them. And it'll only get worse as the children grow older. I'm glad that the kids can now have an easily accessible place to store their 'barangs'.
Right before my firstborn entered P1, I bought him a set of ergonomic, adjustable table and chair for him to do his homework at. It was a great investment because, although he grew so rapidly since he first used it, he could continue to use it after we adjusted the height. In fact, it still has more capacity for growth.
Now that Jayna is going to primary school next year too, I fulfilled my promise to her that I would buy the pink version when she is older. The sad part is, this model is no longer available locally and I had to spend almost twice the amount of money to get it from overseas. Nevertheless, I find it worthwhile since I still have another boy and girl to inherit these two sets of furniture in the future.
All along, the children have been using the towels from their baby era. Those towels were more like swaddling cloths with hoods attached. Since even Joram is starting to exit the toilet with the towel wrapped under his arms, I decided to get new ones which are smaller, making it easier to wrap around the body and for the older two, who are bathing on their own, to dry themselves without dropping the towels on the wet floor. Now, they are even able to hang their own towels back on the rack without any help too! Indeed, smaller towels are far more suitable and manageable for children to use.
