Just. STOP.

* STOP taking my pens from my desk. I have purchased pens for you. Just because you lost them all does not make mine fair game. It drives me absolutely BONKERS to go for a pen and have NONE THERE.

* STOP messing around and just DO YOUR HOMEWORK. You whine because you have so much to do, but every time I turn around you are playing with a necklace, or blowing up a glove you brought home from science class, or sneaking a game on the computer. Just get it DONE. I know that I am an extreme hypocrite because I procrastinate like crazy, but darn it DO WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO.

* STOP leaving your dirty clothes on the floor of your room. You have a hamper. USE IT.

* STOP leaving WET towels on the floor of your room. Or the floor of the bathroom. Or the floor of the hallway. HANG THEM UP.

* STOP leaving cupboard doors open. And bureau drawers. If I wanted to look at all that stuff all the time, I would have open shelving.

* STOP leaving twenty billion eensie scraps of paper lying all over the floor from when you snuck my scissors out of the drawer and didn't return them, either.

* STOP chewing with your mouth open so that I can hear you IN ANOTHER ROOM. That is SO gross.

* STOP dropping all of your outerwear in a pile directly in the doorway. Really.

* STOP doing whatever it is that you are doing that leaves toothpaste spatters three-quarters of the way up the mirror. Every. Single. Day.

* STOP putting clothing that you have had on your body for approximately five seconds into the hamper. Also stop this with clothing that never actually made it onto your body, but you considered wearing.

* STOP leaving clothes hangers everywhere in the world except in your closet. I mean, really...in the bottom of your desk drawer? WTF?

* STOP growing up so fast. I mean it. Just. STOP.

**[note: some of these are directed at both children. Some are at one or the other. All annoy the CRAP out of me. mk]