Jim Silcock and Ann Belles don't always see eye to eye when it comes to their sons. Recently they couldn't agree on how many there are.
"We have nine rows of four when we set up the family picture," argued Silcock, 43, believing the number to be 36. In the end, however, Belles reminded him that one of the boys was still a foster son not yet adopted, making the total 35.
Not that one child dramatically changes things for the Huntington Beach family that does 40 loads of laundry a day and spends $1,000 a week on food.
Taking care of such a large family, acknowledges Belles, 42, is "a struggle."
"We're living month to month."
Yet it's the kind of struggle she's craved since she was 8. That's when she saw "Oliver!," the movie adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel about an orphan who runs off and joins a group of pickpockets. "I became really intrigued with orphan boys," Belles recalled, and wanted to take care of them. Belles already had nine foster children and was working on her first adoption when she met Silcock in an Internet chat room in 1998.
After chatting on the Internet and on the phone for three months, Silcock, who was living in Florida, moved to California to live with Belles. They married four weeks later.
Since then, the couple have adopted 35 boys, all disabled, now 4 to 27 years old. They come from around the world, including Russia, Estonia, Romania and Kazakhstan. Silcock himself is a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair since 1987, when he broke his neck diving.
One son died last year at 19 of complications from spina bifida. Several have reached maturity and moved into nearby apartments and homes. Twenty-seven live with their parents, three dogs, three rats, two hamsters and 15 fish in a two-story 4,000-square-foot house a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. It has nine bedrooms, five bathrooms, an elevator and walls plastered with family portraits and photos.
The couple keep adopting boys, Belles said, because ever since she saw "Oliver!," she's liked boys.
The children's schedules are posted on the refrigerator listing schools, room numbers and teachers as well as times and locations for overlapping sessions devoted to basketball, karate, swimming, tumbling, skating and counseling. It's also facilitated by the family's six vehicles. And to help it all flow, the family employs a staff of 14 aides.
"You always have somebody to play with," said Michael, 13. "You don't ever have to be alone."
