OK, I'm one of those parents who considers cribs, playpens, exercausers, swings, etc. to be baby cages.  I admit it.  Someone gave us a crib when D was born, and when I realized I was only using it to hold laundy, we sold it.  A cousin lent me a playpen.  I think we set it up once for a day or two when D was a toddler.  So he could climb in and out on his own, we put a chair and a stool for stairs to get in, and a toy bin inside to climb down on or up out of the playpen.  He wasn't too crazy about it, it took up a lot of space, and so it went back away again.  Recently, I have been thinking it would be a good idea to get it out so the boys have a place to play with legos or other things they don't want M destroying.  People were generally cranky yesterday, so I decided to set it up as a diversion.  S was so excited about it -- he's never seen a play pen before, and I think the name made it sound more exciting than it really is.  When I was setting it up, he asked me where all the toys were.  :P  He wanted to go in first.  After a few minutes of hanging out in there with a transformer, a dinosaur, a stuffed unicorn, and a book of mazes, he wanted to come out.  D, who was laying on the couch sick, wanted to go in next.  I set up his pillow and blanket in there, and he laid down while I finised our school reading.  Then he asked for his starfall workbook, but didn't feel like doing much.  When he came out, M wanted in.  Once she realized she was trapped in there, I figured she would want out.  Not so.  She loved it in there!  She rolled around on the bottom, jumped, pulled herself up on the sides, ran the few steps from one end to the other and hit the wall and fell down laughing.  She would crouch down and look out through the mesh, then stand up and peek over the top edge.  After a while, I thought she might be getting bored, so I went to lift her out.  She ran to the far corner and crouched down as far as she could.  The kids spent most of the rest of the day taking turns in the playpen.  When N came home, he discovered that a blanket on top makes a fun little cave.  Oh, how M squealed with delight.  This morning, M wanted back in again, and it occured to me that the play pen is a great place for playing with messy things that toddlers like -- rice bins, bits of paper they want to tear up and toss around, etc.  We have a package of pasta that was spilled on the floor and was donated to the craft bin.  I put that in there with her and various containers and such.  She loves being in there, pouring them from one container to another, dropping them on her head, and tossing them around.  I'm not getting stressed out over the mess and having to crawl under the table and locate lost pasta.  Everybody's happy!  I don't know that I would have pulled it out when she was much younger than this.  But it is wonderful now!  We just need one that's a bit bigger, since all three kids want to be in it together sometimes.

I never thought I would see the day I would be singing the praises of a play pen.