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As summer approaches and I’m in the store buying the first batch of sunhats, it dawns on me maybe I should just grab the entire stock. Because apparently my kids think all things are disposable. My kids lose everything!This year alone my three year old has already lost a sweatshirt, a hat ,a pair of sunglasses and more than one water bottle. How do they do that?

My five year old are just as bad. One time he came home with one shoe - it’s a pair of shoes! They were on your feet when you left the house this morning! At what point in your day did you notice you were running on one shoe?!

I’ve tried nametags and permanent maker; I’ve sewn strings on mittens and hats to coats. When I did that he just lost the coat too! Is it something we just have to accept as mothers? Are we teaching our kids to appreciate what they have?

The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” poet Elizabeth Bishop wrote. My children’s habit of leaving their belongings strewn behind them-a long tail of balls and toys and lunchboxes and socks and shoes and sweatshirts-makes me fear that they are heedless prima donnas who will never be ready for the responsibilities of adulthood. And then, of course, I’m forced to concede that I seem to have raised them to be this way. The ritual of losing things makes me wonder about the line between taking good care of your kids and impossibly overprotecting them.

I try to convince myself: They’ll get the hang of keeping track of their own things eventually. I can’t stop feeling like the constant replacement of possessions is exhausting and somehow immoral. I celebrate when a day goes by without the kids asking the inevitable “where is” and “can you help me find” questions. Somehow, these children of ours need to learn that there’s a reason to come back carrying the things they left with.

In the meantime I’m just trying not to lose my mind……….