"Mom, where's my..."

Any query that begins with those three words makes my blood boil, dear readers. Unfortunately it happens with stunning regularity, that one of my offspring, or H, loses something vital and they think it's my job to "help" them find it, aka, find it for them.

Ask my kids, "What is Mommy's least favorite part of being a mom?", and they will answer, in unison, "Finding other people's stuff!" It seems once you have passed a human out of your body, you develop the uncanny ability to find Polly Pocket shoes, Matchbox cars and lost umbrellas. More accurately, this skill starts to truly develop when your first little on becomes mobile, so it's been close to ten years for me that I've been digging under couches and searching through the kitchen garbage to benefit someone other than myself. And after all these years, I have decided two unavoidable facets of motherhood work together to turn mothers into the blood hounds of their households.*

First, you are around most of the time. You know that Little Man had his purple one inch-long purple dinosaur from the A&P vending machine when he went down to the basement, so you know where to start looking for it when he refuses to go to bed without it. You can, as Steve from Blues Clues says, ""Go back, go back, go back, go back to where you were". Second, as a mother, you are so used to anticipating the needs of your family, (whereas your husband is completely reactionary, waiting until the children are comatose with hunger before feeding them, instead of anticipating most children eat lunch between the hours of eleven and one), you can think pretty well like them when you have to. So while you could send your hubs to the basement in search of the dinosaur, he would not be able to read the clues left behind to have a successful search and rescue. If it's not lying in the middle of the carpet, he has no chance. There is no way he will see the half-eaten bowl of Goldfish next to LM's garbage truck and think to himself, "He probably put it in the back of the truck." Elementary, dear Watson! Instead, he will sigh beleagueredly, and tromp back up the stairs claiming, "It's not ANYWHERE!" It is imperative to think like your subject. Manys the time I have been crawling around on the floor trying to get a toddler's-eye view to find an absolutely indispensable toy.

And it is the indispensability of these lost items that really gets me annoyed, dear readers. With the exception of Little Man, whose reasoning skills are rudimentary right now, the other three people I live with can connect the dots enough to think, "If something is important, I'd better keep track of where I put it." Library books, flutes and American Girl eyeglasses. Healthcare cards, iPad chargers and car keys. Why are these things MY responsibility? It's also the lack of looking that drives me mad. My family's search for items basically consists of walking into a room , spinning in a circle, and leaving, then coming to me so I can ask them where they were the last time they had the item, where did they last see it, etc. H, sometimes tries harder. Recently, upon my return from Texas, when H had been driving the van for three days, H could not find the keys. He thought he could throw over his shoulder, "I couldn't find them, I'll be late for work" and hit the bricks. No fucking way. I told him he was not leaving until he found my keys, you know, with my having to take Little Man to school three towns over and all. "I've looked everywhere!" he sighs. Then, like a toddler, I had to ask him when he drove the van last, and to where. What was he wearing? Where did he go afterwards? "I went to work after, and I already looked in my bag!!!" I told him, 'Well, it looks like you're working from home today, as I will be taking your car." Another, more extensive search of his work bag results in the found keys. Funny how that works.

So while I do not expect any member of my family to have such extensive knowledge of the location of every item in the house, I do expect them to at least TRY, when it comes to finding shit. I know this is a war comprised of many battles, but I have to keep trying. If I don't go through this exhausting exercise, I'll be fielding phone calls, helping them find resumes and birth control pills.

*To be fair, I'm sure there are some dads who also have this gift, but I have yet to meet any one with a penis who could find the Lego firefighter's hat in less than a week.