I don't know about you all, but my boys LOVE video games. It seems whenever they receive a gift certificate for their birthday's or other occasions, they call out the video game they've been just dying to get. Therefore, we have a lot of video games and two little boys who don't quite understand the concept of taking care of them.

It was not a surprise when I'd walk downstairs to the "video game room" and see 6 or 7 disks laying on the floor, with cases in another part of the room, and instruction booklets MIA (usually found in the hands of Princess or Smilee). It got ridiculous and I started getting very angry at their disrespect for the games. Spouting off how if I see the games laying on the floor again, I'll take the game cube away for a week. Yeah ... how did that work out for me? Kids didn't play many video games in their down time ... and quite frankly I feel I am the one who suffered. :)

I then gathered all the games up and cleared a shelf in our kitchen pantry making space for the games. Since the kitchen is where I tend to spend most of my time cooking, cleaning, giving snacks, checking email, folding laundry, etc ... I thought this would be a good place. Now, they are allowed ONE game downstairs at a time. If they would like another game, they need to bring me the game they were playing, the case AND the instruction booklet must be tucked neatly inside. Once they bring this to me, I will open the locked pantry and they can choose another game.

Since starting this procedure, our games are in mint condition without even a crinkle in any instruction booklets ... WORKS FOR ME!