Oh (pre-teen) boy!

Oh. My. Word. I do not know how I am going to deal with Carlos when he officially becomes a teenager because everyone tells me I am in for it, be prepared. If it gets worse than this, well I just may be taking an extended vacation, like a 6-8 year vacation maybe. I will say it again boys can be just as complicated and dramatic as girls, do not buy into that stereotypical notion that girls are more difficult, because my boy is living proof how wrong that is. This morning things really hit rock bottom. It all started over a pair of pajama pants. Yes I said pajama pants. There is far more to it, but I won't go into the mountains of details. Anyway Carlos ended up taking the bus to school which he never does, I drive him and Jewel to school daily, and I ended up calling his guidance counselor and brainstorming with her. We came up with a few good ideas.

So I come home to start implementing one of these great ideas. I will be pulling all his *extras until he starts to show progress. Common sense solution right. Well we do not always stick to this solution, so today I decided to physically pull out the *extras. I go into his room and start. Keyboard and mouse, PS2. Then I look around. I have been asking him to clean up his room for months. OK that may not be correct it has probably been almost a year. It is BAD! Bad like you cannot even imagine because even I could not imagine until I started cleaning it myself this morning.

The things I found dated back to 3rd grade. Just laying on the floor on the bottom of piles. He is in 6th grade! I found a bag of clothing, personal stuff from his trip to Puerto Rico. He went to Puerto Rico last summer, he never unpacked! I pull out this big trunk I bought him a few years ago. I bought it because one it is cool looking and two it has a keyed lock and so he would be able to keep a good amount of things in here that the girls should not have access to. I open it. In it I find, well, very little, it is more than half empty. There is this bag though, and upon picking up I smell it. No I don't mean I picked it up to my nose and sniffed it, I mean I SMELLED it. What the heck. It's wet, this bag is wet, this trunk was covered in stuff, who knows when it was last open, how long has "this" been in here.

I take it over to the bed, the only available spot, and set it on another bag, because remember, it's wet. I untie it, it has an enormous knot in it. In it is another bag with another knot. The smell is growing. Finally it's open, and what I found was shocking. A molding, decaying horseshoe crab shell, or maybe it is actually two shells. I don't know but it is wet, gross, stinky, has black mold spots on it, green fuzz in other spots. WHY??? And this is not little, when I say shell don't mistake it for say a seashell type thing. It is big. Take a look, I stuck a pen inside of one part to show a comparison.