Battle of the Underwear

Carlos received a bill today. It was a bill for NOT wearing clean underwear. For some reason, both Carlos and Kervens don't seem to worry much about body odor. Nice for them, but it's one of those battles I'm not giving in on. However, I am wearying - I'm tired of hearing myself ask about clean underwear and deodorant, tired of hearing Karl get on them about their cleanliness, and tired of smelling the stink! I even bought cool looking new underwear last week to motivate him (?!?)
So, along with a couple of other laundry issues I'm getting tired of including sticky gum that gets everywhere and candy wrappers, Carlos is going to be charged an underwear fee. If nagging and reminding don't help, maybe hurting the pocketbook will. For each pair of underwear he is missing in the laundry he will be charged .50 cents. If he is missing underwear two weeks in a row, it will jump to $1.00 per missing pair. I won't ask, nag, or remind him to change his underwear daily. He'll just get a nice little bill each week after I've finished the laundry. Can you tell I'm at my wits end?
Of course if I told him I was writing this, I'm sure he'd be horrified. Hopefully this course of action works...if not, I'll have a weekly posting of daily underwear cleanliness for all to see. Nothing like airing our dirty laundry!

Update 12/23/2008

Carlos used 5 pair of underwear in the last 7 days....big improvement over 3 last week and 1 the week before!! :)

Why Michael Phelp's Mom Cries

[NY TIMES Photo of Debbie Phelps]

It's been a lot of fun watching Michael Phelps achieve history, but even more fun watching his mom's reaction to his wins. How can I be so presumptuous as to know why she cries? Of course she's utterly thrilled with having a child win a gold medal in the Olympics, but there is more. I have an ADHD kid. Michael has ADHD as well, and I KNOW the challenges Debbie had. Challenges with a hyper, distractible kid, challenges with schools who may not see the full potential of your child, and challenges with folks who just have a hard time dealing with a child who isn't "normal".

Of course, I'm talking about Carlos. This morning, he drove me insane; just a few minutes after he got out of bed!! He was distracted by the kittens, a toy lying on the floor, seeing the plate as a flying saucer and doing anything and everything but keeping his butt on the chair and eating his orange. When I deal with a distractible, hyper, giddy kid on a daily basis trying to accomplish simple things to get through the day, I get easily frustrated and impatient. Not only is our cute little Carlos ADHD, but he's VERY strong willed and very smart. That all spells T.R.O.U.B.L.E. for a parent. Fifteen minutes after Carlos got up, I told Karl, who knew that Michael was ADHD - " I know EXACTLY why Debbie Phelps cries."

Debbie has already been through similar circumstances to what we're going through with Carlos.
The awesome thing is not only has she seen him overcome his challenges, but she's been watching him become a champion in the world's eyes. This kid who was teased because he looked and acted different has shattered world records.

Even though Carlos may never achieve what Michael Phelps has, it helps me to focus on the future for Carlos and that the daily challenges we have are just temporary. Carlos' destiny may not be greatness in the world's eyes, but it WILL be in God's. He actually has already achieved that in his young years solely because he is God's child.

You go, Michael; and Debbie, I'm crying right along with you!

English Language Learner

The education system is funny sometimes. Because English is Carlos' second language, he is classified as an "English Language Learner" or "ELL". He has been in ELL classes since pre-school. This past school year, we asked to have him discharged from the program because he was being taken out of class regularly and missing math. He didn't like the ELL classes, and it seems to us that his English skills are pretty darn good. He has some expressive issues, but he knows the words. It has nothing to do with language. The state of Arizona recently passed a mandate that all kids eligible for ELL will be in ELL class 4 hours each day starting this next school year. This includes Carlos. Parents have the option to have their kids opt out which we will do. The really crazy thing about all of this is Carlos took the Terra Nova test in April, and his score in language was 90 percent. That means his language skills are better than 90 percent of the other kids tested across the country! Go figure!

Update 8/26/08 - Carlos passed his recent ELL test. He's been labeled as "proficient". He will be tested over the next 2 years to make sure he stays that way. In the meantime, it means no ELL classes at school!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Vicki and Carlos gave Karl handmade Father's Day gifts; I think Karl liked them more than his MP3 player! The twins 2nd grade teachers were absolutely wonderful this past school year, and they made lots of wonderful memories. The teachers made sure that the dad's weren't left out just because school was out, so they had the kids make gifts before the end of the year.
These gifts are little "effigies" with traced hands and feet and drawn heads. Notice Vicki's painted nails, and Carlos' little curl on his forehead!
They also wrote poems. Vicki wrote Kittens Artistic Reading Laughing (acrostic for Karl) and "My dad has a cat it is Sunny". Carlos wrote "Dad, nice, funny, works, runs, welder, makes me nice things" Runs? Carlos said "well, once!" He also wrote "I love you so much. You make me things that are nice. You are the best, Dad." Awww!
By the way, Vicki's little acrostic was prophetic.....more on that next time!!

Girls Rule, Boys Drool

Saturday night coming home from the dog park with Buster, Carlos and Vicki would not settle down. It continued as they got ready for bed, until I really got on them to stop. The first reaction out of Carlos was "Vicki......" I said don't blame your sister, you need to take responsibility for your own behavior. To this, Carlos responded with great emotion and tears - "You think that Vicki rules and I drool? I SLOBBER?" I guess he really takes those playground sayings to heart! I had to pinch myself so I could stop laughing! Later, as I was tucking him in, I talked to him about respecting me and listening and obeying. His response: "But I'm only a KID!!!" Yes, Carlos, you're a kid, but you need to TRY!!! Carlos comes up with the craziest things! I'm really glad he's MY kid!

Five Buck Steal

If you want an incredible bargain, just knock on our door. Carlos put his toys and our two trucks up for sale for ONLY $5! Cheep!
Awhile ago, Carlos found a cassette Walkman by the wash where teens skate. It came with an MTV dance cassette and a radio. Unfortunately for Carlos, the MTV dance music is hardly appropriate for young ears, but even worse is the one and only station that comes in loud and clear. It's a bad attitude rap station. He had it blaring yesterday and Karl heard how foul it was. Karl had to take the Walkman away. Try explaining this to an 8 year old!! We explained how it's important to be careful what we let our eyes see and ears hear. God wants us to have pure hearts, and that starts with what we allow into our minds. Of course, he thought what we were saying was not a good thing to put into HIS ears! He was so mad that he took out a bunch of his toys and wrote up the sign you see above. I asked him why he wanted to sell his things (and OUR trucks!), and what he would do with the money, but all he could think of was that he was mad. So here's the sign translated: FOR SALE by Owner. $5 Cheap. Call (our number) La Canoa. Blue Toyota. Red Toyota. Carlos!!
This morning he put all his toys away. He's not mad anymore. Just sad. We'll have to buy him a CD player, or put better songs on his MP3 player. Hopefully that Five Bucks will go a long way!

Eyeballs In Heaven

Last night Carlos said he was scared and couldn't go to sleep. Many nights he says this before going to bed, and usually he's afraid of spiders or bobcats or something scary from a movie. Last night, it was eyeballs. We had a conversation in the car a couple of weeks ago along with Vicki when we saw a dead dog by the side of the road. Whenever that occurs, we usually end up talking about God and heaven. Well, the kids were trying to figure out what being a "spirit" was like - our spirit inside of us. Carlos wanted to know if we were going to have our eyeballs in heaven because he wants to see. When I again tried explaining "spirit" and that we won't take our eyeballs with us, he started crying that he wants his eyeballs to come with him and he doesn't want heaven to be filled with people without eyeballs. Sounds scary to me! So last night, the eyeballs came up again. Yikes! So, for Carlos, here's a photo just for you...