Can anybody hear me?

Sometimes that is what I feel like shouting in our house. I have a three year old, five year old, and 29 year old that are having a hard time listening. With Emily and Palmer it is a constant battle to get them to pick up after themselves. I want them to learn to put their dirty clothes in the hamper, shoes in the closet, jackets on their hooks, dishes in the sink, trash in the trash, and toys back where they came from. Reminding them isn't the problem. The problem is having to ask them 130096821 times before they do it. I end up getting frustrated and sometimes yelling before they listen. Although I can pretend I have no idea where they get this from all I have to do is look towards the 29 year old.

Bret helps around the house....when I ask him to. Correct that when I nag/beg/bribe/yell he helps around the house. He has very simple chores that have to happen one to two times a week. His dirty clothes go in the hamper, take out the trash, clean Lulu's cage, and the one or two things around the house (like hang things up or heaven's forbid change a diaper once in a while). His excuse is that he doesn't think it is fair for me to expect him to jump up that very second to get whatever it is that I want done at that very minute. However, after all of these years I have learned that about him so I have gotten better about giving him a time frame (in 20 minutes please put the game down and do xyz).

Still just once I wish I wasn't the one telling everyone else what they need to do. I don't know who thought that I LIKE cleaning the house, doing laundry, or cooking every single meal but that is not always the case. Maybe it is because we all live in such a SMALL space but clutter drives me nuts. It takes less than two seconds literally for a perfectly clean house to be buried in all of our crap once again.

Just once I wish Bret would just help clean up the house without being asked. I wish Emily and Palmer would just "get" picking up after themselves without being asked. I wish the tiny elves that lived under our bed on the cruise..you know the ones that magically know every time you leave to come and straighten out your room again...would have come home with me.