I May Have Lost My Mind

I couldn't blog about this last night because I felt somewhat crazy. And I don't really want for you to think that I am crazy. But last night, I may have lost my mind. You see, I have these children, and from time to time, they push me over the edge. I have a long (and I mean loooooooooooong) fuse. I can harp on something for years before I finally snap. Things such as:

• flushing the toilet
  
• hanging up your wet towel
• putting your clothes away properly
• treating your things (and other people's) with respect
• please stop ignoring me (I even had my mother-in-law (she's a nurse) test their hearing last week)
  

I like for their rooms to be tidy. Not perfect. Just tidy. Like, you can actually open the door and walk into the room. You can see some semblance of order.

But they seem to have other ideas in mind. Let me enumerate them for you.
1. They wore the same socks for the majority of last week. They did this because they could not find any other socks. (The SAME nasty, sweaty, yucky socks, people!)
2. Why should you hang up your church clothes when you can just as easily ball them up and shove them in the back of your t-shirt drawer?
3. Flush? Why? I am just going to use the toilet again. And then have to flush again. Better to do this only every 3 days or so.

Which brings me to yesterday (keep in mind other recent posts...dog poop in Chan's room, for example). The girls picked out their outfits for the week. I went and checked them for coordination and making sure they were appropriate for school. Everyone did a fine job. So, I decided to start to clean out some of their summer play clothes from their dressers. This is when I found 10 (10!) pairs of socks each (Each!) in the wrong dresser drawers. In Casey's dresser I also found her dresses shoved to the back of the drawer. So, I went to hang them up. Which is when I noticed that she had 4 (Four!) damp towels shoved into her doll storage bucket. And I lost it.

And then I bagged everything up. 10 bags of girl belongings are now taking up space in my hallway.

I am worried that they are spoiled. And I know that I am responsible for this. I am re-evaluating my actions as I type. They believe that they are entitled to everything they have in their lives - dance, piano, church activities, etc. They also think that everything they want should be theirs. I don't know how to teach gratefulness. We are scaling back. We have to (paycuts, furlough days) and I am afraid that this is going to be a rude awakening for the girls. But I think that it will better their character. And so, last night was not a fun night in our house.

When they walked in the door tonight, Casey asked me if I was still mad at them. I told her no, but that some things were going to have to change.

And we went about our evening together.

But then I ran errands and when I came home, Casey immediately began nosing through the bag from Target. "Did you get me the glitter night light that I have been wanting?"

Really? I just bagged up all of your worldly possessions 24 hours ago and you are asking me if I have bought you something? Ugh. Shakes head. Sighs. Walks away.