Where are the keys?

I must be getting old, at least that's what I'm telling myself. I can no longer blame my forgetfulness on being pregnant. I think I rode that one for all it was worth, but really, I have to admit, I have a problem. If there was a Twelve-Step program for overcoming this, I would be the first to sign up. There's actually two parts to my problem and I would like to explain them both.

1- I just can't seem to keep track of my keys. Simple responsibility, I know, but I often find myself running around the house, searching for the keys. Poor Mark, he has to deal with this too. Whenever I take his car or borrow his church keys, chances are, they're not back in the drawer where they are suppose to be.

This morning it was time to take Ethan to school, and surprise, the keys were missing. I finally gave up looking for them and took the spare key so I could get my son to school on time. Then, low and behold, when Ethan opened the door, there were the keys, just hanging there in the lock - OUTSIDE. Now mind you, they had been there for over 15 hours - they had been there all night long - they had been there and ANYONE could have come right in our house - they had been there and I was all alone with my three little boys (Mark's out of town for work). I just had to thank the Lord for keeping us safe through the night and for helping us finally find the keys.

2- I hide things on purpose. I'm sure I'm not the only mom that does this. You know, hiding things so the kids won't find them, be it a Christmas present, chocolate chips or my sewing scissors, I have to hide things from my boys. They are amazing at finding things I don't want them to have. Aaron has told me many times, after finding something, "I found your hiding place mom, you can't trick me."

So when you add these two problems together, my forgetfulness and hiding things on purpose, the only thing you get is a disaster. Case in point, Ethan's Valentines!!! I helped the boys put their class valentines together on Tuesday. Aaron took his to preschool on Wednesday and that made it nice to have them all done for Ethan. Problem - a bag full of candy just sitting on top of the fridge for three days. Everything was fine until this morning when Aaron found the bag and helped himself to the candy for Ethan's class. Now there weren't enough treats for the whole class. I told him that wasn't too nice and took the bag. I then had to go back to the store to buy more candy for Ethan's class. I broke the news to Ethan and told him I got even better treats this time, so everything would be just fine. My only problem, I couldn't remember where I stashed the valentines and left over candy. Finally I told Ethan I wasn't sure what we were going to do. He said we should pray and ask for help. Of course, leave it to Ethan to come up with this plan. I reminded him that Heavenly Father might not be able to help us immediately, that I would have to think about it some more and maybe by the morning I would remember where the bag was. It wasn't but 2 or 3 minutes later that I thought of a place they might be that I hadn't checked. Sure enough, there they were. Problem solved, right?! at least until the next time Mindy tries to hide something from the boys or Mark needs his car keys.