Do any 5th grade boys remember things?

The question that I find myself asking most often is "Do any 5th grade boys remember things?" I am having a hard time determining if my son, A, is just extremely forgetful and plagued with terrible short term memory loss or if it is more an age thing.

He can be standing right next to the napkins, and we can ask him to bring the napkins to the table. Immediately after he says "Okay" he will walk to the table without the napkins. I just don't understand it. I could understand if things like this occured once in a while - who doesn't forget things at times? In fact, I find myself still suffereing from pregnancy brain and my baby girl is almost 10 months old. But A seems to never remember anything. Unless it is lyrics to music or something I told him we might possibly do at some point in the future. He certainly remembers those things and asks about them constantly.

I don't know how to get him to remember things, any suggestions out there? We have a planner, tried lists, wipe of boards, nagging, taking things away. I recently threatened to walk him to class and meet him outside of class after school with the two little kids daily (while wearing my fuzzy crocs) if I don't start seeing papers from school. That seemed to help a little bit, but only that first day.

He is a great student and a wonderful kid, but this forgetfulness is really causing some major problems when it comes to important things that we are missing. Help! :)