A friend wanted to borrow a textbook that Lane used last semester for a college class. I asked him to find it for me. Although he had just finished the course in December, it might as well have been a year ago. He couldn’t find it; he even asked me if I had sold it on EBay already. I wish I was that far ahead of schedule but I am currently being pulled in too many directions. Then I asked Buck if he could help his brother look for the Psychology textbook because my friend needed it tomorrow. He appeared about 10 minutes later saying that it wasn’t in the room. That, of course, left me to search in the chasm that they call a bedroom for the book.

The room is decorated in true ADHD style. Nothing can be put away because then they couldn’t find it, right? I looked under Ty’s bed and found an entire load of dirty laundry, which I pulled out and summoned him to sort through. Then I lifted up Bucks box springs and quickly dropped it back down. “BUCK! Get in here with a garbage bag and clean under your bed!” I don’t think the neighbors could hear me, but everyone in the house sure did.

As a last resort, I climbed the ladder to Lane’s loft bed. How anyone can sleep in a bed with books, a laundry basket, DVD’s, and grocery bags full of goodies is beyond me. I threw off the laundry basket and told him to put the three items remaining in it away. Then I carefully lifted the blankets, afraid of what I might find. I did find his physiology book and DVD, a little deeper I found the psychology book.

We put shelves around the top of the room to help the boys organize their stuff. The shelf over Lane’s bed is full. There he has a snakeskin, and old paper-wasp nest, a snare drum, an arrow he used hunting, and a box of rocks. Very important items to a boy, I guess that is why he needs too keep his books from last semester in his bed. He had the nerve to tell me when we were leaving for college today that he had lost his cell phone again. Previously I have found it in his bed and in his sock drawer.

Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2008