They are not allowed to take anything to their mom's except for the DS and Mp3 players. Those go back and forth. But, no jewelry or other gifts. We even keep books they are reading. Otherwise, we never see them again. We are horribly mean. But, I just realized the SD14 when she went to FL on Spring Break had taken two of my beach towels and now we need them for a trip and her little drama about living here, they have gone to BM's never to be seen again. She left from here and came back to her house. This is why we are so diligent with this. Now I have to go buy another beach towel.

SD13 takes more stuff back and forth with her then I like, but SD4 does not take anything back with her but the clothes she arrives in and the outfit she packs for "return day". If I didnt let SD14 take the clothes I bought her home I think she would be naked most days. I dont let her take books/dvd's with her but I do let her take her DS, games and MP3 player that I got her. She seems to care enough about these things to take proper care of them.

We keep anything we want to see again here. And any gift cards the kids receive are also spent with us. My mom gets the kids gift cards every year for Christmas (Target usually, about $35 each). I think it was 5 years ago that we were at my moms house after the new year and she asked the kids what they got with their cards, and the youngest kid tells my mom that BM had to take the cards to "buy stuff for the house", UNBELIEVABLE!

We don't let anything go from our house to BMs either. We learned the hard way that it will never come back.

I taught SD7 to read when she was 5. We made an exception to the rule about sending things because BM likes to keep 'firsts' in a memory box so we took the first book she read on her own and wrote in the front of it the date that she first read it all by herself and sent that. SD told us that BM threw it away, didn't even ask the child to read it first, just said it was garbage and tossed it out. She's also tossed out SDs first watch which we gave her for her birthday and taught her to tell time on, clothing (new clothing) and a pair of new boots. Anything that goes over there will never be seen by us again so now nothing goes - no exceptions.

SO's dad sends €50 to BM's house in birthday cards for the skids every year. We only know this because he has mentioned it. The skids say they've never seen it.

If I give anyone a gift, child or adult, I expect them to bring it wherever they like and use it however they like. Once the gift is given, you no longer have a say in it. That's why it's called a gift.