At what point did my children begin to run my house? This is a question that I ask myself of a regular basis and, with lots of thought, have yet to come up with an answer. They are on their way to becoming the crazy cat lady hoarder and the junk yard owner.

Example one: My son has been working on cleaning his room for over a month.

Who lets this happen? It started out that we, meaning my husband and I, helped him clean up and organize everything. Within two days the room was destroyed. I know that the amount of mess is a bit overwhelming but it’s his mess! So we told him we wouldn’t be helping with it this time. After week two of no results, and him taking lots of naps instead of cleaning, I went in with a couple of bins and took some of the mess out thinking that this would help to ease the stress. Still nothing. Then week three I told him that the bins would be getting tossed if the room wasn’t cleaned. Nope, didn’t work. Week four threw away the toys from both bins. Very few tears were shed and he just shrugged his shoulders and helped me carry them outside to the trash. WTF! Okay the original plan was to just put the bins in the garage until the room was cleaned, but after that they went into the trash. Still no change in the mess of his room. Now I’m pissed and go into the room and start to holler. This gets me the response, “You’re being so mean. You make my heart feel like it’s raining.” Great, worst mother award goes to the mother of the boy with the raining heart. I wasn’t sure whether to give him a hug and cry with him or throw him and his stuff out the window. I opted to do neither, walked away, and went to pour myself a drink. This is when I realized that it’s only 11am. At this point, week five or maybe six, I will go in with another trash bag and haul out the rest. Pretty sure that he will still be able to make a mess with nothing in his room.

Example two: I have no hangers in my closet.

I went to hang up my shirts and found a lack of hangers. Since I had just gone through my tops and got rid of anything that didn’t fit or I wasn’t wearing anymore there should have been a few extras. I walked over to my daughters room and asked if she had taken any. “Nope I didn’t mom.” Hmmm, interesting. They are not in my room, your open closet shows that you have taken to hanging everything but your underwear, and you didn’t take them. “No.” I’m going to call bullshit hand over a few hangers. Considering that there are two dressers in her room it’s not really necessary to have that many hangers or maybe a dresser needs to leave the room. When this is suggested I’m told that all the drawers are full. Of what!

I’m raising a couple of hoarders. I am inconsistent with discipline. I don’t follow through on my threats. I have a hard time saying no. I’m going to turn into an alcoholic, snap and throw everything out of the house, or maybe just run away. Can I do all three?

When did this happen? I’m pretty sure that I did not buy ninety percent of the stuff in those rooms and I’ve never caught my children shoplifting so can I blame it all on grandparents and aunts? Probably not. I will take any suggestions for getting kids to get rid of things that they do not need, want, are too old for. My son at this moment is using the dust pan as a shovel to aid in the toy pick up process. It is also after 7pm and I’m going to make a drink and think on this problem some more before my wicked step mother personality starts to show again.