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Selling a home is always work but there are particular challenges when small children live in your home.

One house sale lasted several months. We learned to get the house ready to show with one hour's notice. We had a zone defense. Each child straightened their room and cleaned a bathroom. I vacuumed, mopped, dusted, lit candles, sprayed air freshener and turned on gentle music.

We had some nifty tricks. You could hide things in the washer and dryer because they weren't going with the house. You could put things in the dressers - if they weren't built in. AND if absolutely necessary you could fill laundry baskets and trash bags and stick them in the trunk of a car.

After one hurried trip out the door as the realtor arrived at the front curb, all four kids strapped themselves in the car and we backed out of the drive. I ran through our zone defense list:

floors- check
music - check
lights and candles - check and check
bathrooms - check,check, check
bedrooms - check???

The two youngest who shared a room were very proud to announce at this point that they had gathered all of their toys and stuffed animals off of their floor and put them away.... in the bathtub.

I squealed the brakes. Too late. I looked back over my shoulder to see the realtor and the potential buyer go through the front door.

Maybe -just maybe the buyer had kids who liked "bath toys."