Hee hee - my parents had the opposite syndrome. When Paul asked my parents for permission to marry me, so they knew for ceratin I'd be moving out that summer, my mother said "Oh, I'll put the antique velvet couch in there, and that table and then ... " There are four of us (I'm #3 of the 4) but there's 13 years between the youngest and the oldest, so my folks had dealt with kids in the house for 30 years at that point. Ma was ready to have a "nice room" for company finally!

Freinds of mine were dealing with this not too long ago. Renee and Mike adopted a 13-year-old, so he was only "theirs" and in their house for a "scant" 10 years. I saw them not too long after he moved out, and Renee said "I looked at Mike the other night, and said 'What DID we talk about before Sean came?'"