insanity or perseverance?

I know kids tend to have selective hearing and need to be told over and over to do things.  Kyle takes it to a whole new level.  Every single night I go into Kyle's room to turn out his light after reading time.  Every single time I look down only to see his pile of dirty clothes from that day in the middle of the room.  Every.single.time.  And every time I say "Kyle - please put your dirty clothes into the laundry hamper".  Yes, I know, I'm being completely unreasonable making him walk 5 feet to the bathroom but let's be truthful, us moms are here to make our kids lives miserable.

Then there's the walk to and from the bus stop.  First I need to admit I have become lazy with the bus stop...it's at the end of our street in clear view from the porch so I rarely walk the kids to or from the bus stop, but rather watch from the porch.  This means I don't have to get Leah bundled up on cold and rainy days.  Plus Kyle and Jillian are now 10 and 7 so I think the bit of responsibility that comes with walking to the end of the street and back is good for them (alright...the truth is I like to stay in my pjs in the morning and simply watch them while drinking my tea on the porch or at the front window instead of walking to the end of the street...moving on).

My point is Kyle doesn't seem to realize the sidewalk is for walking.  Almost every day as I send the kids to the bus stop I ask Kyle to walk on the sidewalk and not the snow/slush/grass/curb.  Instead he climbs over the mountains of snow at the end of the driveways, he finds each and every puddle, he throws his gloves up into the tree branches until one gets stuck on an unreachable branch (why you may ask?  I don't have an answer, and neither does Kyle...part of being Kyle's mom is just accepting "I don't know" as an answer to some of these questions).

Which brings me to the question of insanity vs. perseverance.  Mine that is.  I have often heard the quote "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".  I mean if I've already told him 1000 times to do something and he doesn't change his behaviour, why do I think telling him the 1001st time will make a difference?

On the flip side of this argument is perseverance...steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

While insanity does seem to fit in this case (I continue to tell him these things over and over...1004 times and counting), I like the perseverance angle much better.  I'm determined to get Kyle to the point where he can move dirty clothes from his bedroom floor allllll the way to the bathroom without being prompted.  Either that or I'll go to the store this week to buy an additional hamper and put it in his room. 

In any case, I love this kid to bits...dirty clothes, muddy boots, missing gloves and everything else that comes along with being his mom.