Melissa dropped another bowl yesterday. We're down to 7 stoneware plates now and 8 bowls out of Rachel's set of 20. The teacups have fared best, since they don't get used as often; only 3 of those are gone. (We've gone through far more drinking glasses; I think we're on our fourth set of 16.)
Mostly this is due to Matthew, but Melissa is starting to contribute and a few casualties hark back to when Uncle Grant lived in Utah.
There are two schools of thought when dealing with kids breaking things. One is that you don't buy nice, breakable things until the kids are grown, or you keep them locked away. We are doing this with my Lenox china. The other is that 20+ years is too long to wait to enjoy nice things so just go ahead and if they get abused or broken, so be it. This is what we chose to do with Rachel's Ethan Allen table, with the result that Isaac has already left his mark on this, in the form of tooth prints. Nobody said you have to be consistent.
I remember growing up my parents had a lovely floral china set (Mikasa Just Flowers), a wedding present. They started with 14 plates and 12 bowls. By the time we moved to Princeton when I was around 10, we had a handful of plates two bowls left. These were
distinctive, graceful bowls with a delicate arch to them. They were Dad's favorite for morning cereal, and they shattered easily. The bowls were extinct shortly after the move, although two plates are still around.
The torch has passed. Now his grandkids are breaking my bowls.
(When I called Mom to see if she remembered the pattern name, she said they also have some china from an expensive set, too. "This was $100 a plate in the 70s." They got three plates off their registry list and stashed them away. I've never even seen them.)
