Is it Really My Job?

So you know you are tired when you're ready to lose it over a couple of missing school library books.  I end up lecturing and nagging and going on and on to the point that I frustrate myself even more because they don't care.

So I question, is it really my job to keep track of their stuff?  I wouldn't have thought so after all I'm supposed to be teaching them how to become self-reliant and independent little beings.  Teach them?  HAH that's a laugh.  I can organize, show them and "take time for training" till I'm blue in the face and they'll smile at me and the next thing I know they've left the washroom without flushing or washing their hands, they promptly drop their clothes beside their laundry baskets, ignore the napkins I've placed in front of them and wipe their faces across the back of their school uniform sleeves.  Ohhhhhh the list goes on.

So no wonder I begin to feel just a bit like a failure of a mother.  Especially when well meaning people (scream in-laws) make me feel like it's me cause I don't clean or organize.  Because, of course, they don't see it when it's all neat and tidy (after I've had to stand over them and finally pitch in myself) oh no, they just see it after the bomb has gone off and let's face it with three rambunctious kids the bomb goes off often at my house.

It's no great wonder that I'm ready to lose it today since I've been only asking J to find her library books since the last school library day last week.  But you know she's too busy to do anything like that and unless I stand over her and push her into looking, it doesn't get done.  So who ends up looking, I do. Then I go to the next child, where are your library books... "I don't know" to well the "computer says I have books out but I know I returned it".  Sure you did, the books you took out over Christmas vacation magically got returned to the school when?

The problem is we can designate a library book spot but no one seems to follow it, not even their dad.  Books get dropped wherever  they happened to be read and rarely even make it back to the bookshelf until we do a big clean up or I get tired of the sloppy mess of a bookshelf and clean it up myself.  The kids like to play with the books and drag them all over no matter how many times I ask them not to because you know nothing holds a fort together so well as a couple of good heavy books and playing library or bookstore without books is just plain old silly and why would we use a bookshelf to store the books when they look so much nicer on the floor.

Of course, I'm just griping about their library books.  I haven't even mentioned their homework, backpacks, lunch kits, school supplies, mittens, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, shoes, boots, hair do dads, water bottles, crafts, etc. Never mind the drama that occurs if I don't know where something is.  I will literally be greeted with tears and frustration if I can't tell them where they happened to sit their toy down on coming into the house.   WTH!  I know that I'm supposed to have eyes in the back of my head but really I draw the line at psychic abilities.

So what say you?  Do you feel like you have to be their personal assistant or are you trying to train your little beings to be self-reliant?  Are you making any headway or like me are you just one step away from banging your head on the wall?

Zeemaid