A messy mess....

My eye is twitching.
I want to strangle her.
Thank goodness she is back in school this morning, for both of our sakes.

Yesterday afternoon we came home from our big weekend at Aunt Suzy's. The kids had a glorious time playing and yelling and being obnoxious together. We were ALL ready for us to come home, a little downtime was much needed. So the kids quickly headed to the TV room to veg out and not speak for a good hour once we got home. When Jr. and I came downstairs a while later it had looked like a bomb went off in the basement. After all it was spotless only a few hours prior, and then it looked like it had never been cleaned. So Jr. had a mini-meltdown and had the kids clean-up their gigantic mess.

Fast-forward to this morning. As we were walking out the door to head to school I casually asked how the basement was. Ash quickly said "not good" she and Harris had spent some time playing with babies this morning, she assured me she would clean it up after school. So when I got home from dropping her off I checked-out the basement. Oh-my-God! She has 4 blankets spread out on the floor (on the new exercise mats I bought this weekend, must make the pretend babies much more comfortable I guess), both of her baby cribs and all the bedding for them, the stroller, 3 pillows and 4 babies laid out in the middle of the floor.

Now this probably wouldn't be that big of a deal to most people. She just made one simple mess, kids do that, I get it, really. It's just the fact that this happens ALL the time. It's like once something has left her hand she just totally forgets about it. Out of sight, out of mind. It doesn't seem to matter how often I remind her, she just just doesn't/can't remember. EVERY day after school, when we get home, I tell her to hang up her coat in her room. And EVERY day she walks into her room and chucks it on the floor. When she gets dressed in the morning the clothes land on the floor and don't get picked up until I specifically tell her too. When she heads into the kitchen to do some colouring and then she is done she just gets-up and walks away. No thought that maybe she should clean that up. Even though every time she does this we go back and ask her to clean it up.

How do we solve this? I'm at a loss. Really. I always hear, repitition, repititon, repitition, once they hear it enough they will get it. Well, with Ash and any sort of "stuff" it just doesn't seem to work. It's frustrating and maddening and I wish that I could get a better handle on it, have a bit better perspective. I am constantly walking into gigantic messes and I hate to pick on Ash, but 90% of the time it is her mess. Do I punish Dawn and make her help clean it up when it isn't hers? Do I just forget it and let the house go to hell because it would be easier? Do I just clean it up for her, because obviously she is incapable of doing this? I don't think these are the answers. But I'm so tired of having to say it. I want Ash to have a positive and happy childhood, but I feel like all I do somedays is hound her. I'm becoming this gigantic nag, and I hate it.

There is just no easy solution.