the day ben lost his "kool"

i am laughing as i am writing this....

so carrot top & fantasia have been doing a great job of wearing all of us down here since monday. there is a new hole in the wall, compliments of fantasia, a lovely poem written about me that is too inappropriate to write on a blog & various threats & cursings to the group in general.

carrot top has been trying again to secure his position in the home as "top dog" or alpha male by going off for no reason & screaming curse words. then he will usually open up the fridge & try to eat everything in sight...thus the fridge now has a lock on it. yesterday i took him on, very calmly following him from room to room, giving him his distance and just staring him down. it freaked him out. he would yell, "STOP FOLLOWING ME!!" and i would calmly reply, "hmmm? oh me? i'm just standing here." then he would move to another room and i would follow him. he finally got so frustrated with me that he went to his room where i didn't follow him & instead called to him, "peace out, brotha!" as he slammed his door in frustration. 5 minutes later, he emerged back out in a more peaceful and calm state.

cut to this morning.

ben is awesome & handles the kids in the morning so that i can sleep in. this morning carrot top woke up & was fine & then for NO REASON (which is why it's so frustrating to us in the first place, it's just to get attention ) starts yelling curse words at the top of his lungs. ben quietly prompts him to stop & tells him he needs to hurry & get in the shower. carrot top yells, "I DON'T GIVE A F*&!" and pushes ben's last button. ben had been helping fantasia make her lunch & was holding a kool-aid juice pouch thinger & just CHUCKS it at carrot top's back. KABOOM! it explodes all over his back.

the other kids start applauding ben for putting carrot top in his place & ben just calmly tells carrot top, once again, to get in the shower. of course he's now cursing up a storm by this point but it shocked him enough to make him obey.

after ben & ernest cleaned up the mess, ben spoke with carrot top & apologized for losing his temper. he said to him that he doesn't know how to help him anymore, that maybe it's time to consider another placement. (this, by the way, is all another ploy to take back the power from carrot top) here is carrot top's reply.

"ben, i just don't think i'm flourishing here."

flourishing? i wish you could know this kid to realize how funny it is for this word to come out of his mouth. no carrot top, you're not flourishing.. you're living with people who are waaaaaayyyyy too nice & take waaaaayyyyyy too much crap from you for you to actually flourish.

poor benny woke me up & said "um, i lost my temper and threw kool-aid at carrot top." i love this man. any other guy would have knocked carrot top's lights out months ago. i can't help but laugh because i know for ben this was his "tennis ball" moment. have i ever blogged about my tennis ball story? it's a goodie. that was the day i showed carrot top i meant business. another time when i'm out of things to blog about (so right around the end of july when we move out). but hold on to your seats for that story.

as for today, while you are sipping your refreshing kool-aid, remember carrot top & put a little smile on your face for us.