For O.C. Pair, 35 Is Not Enough

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.”

Sometimes, though, in such a big family, there are problems getting attention. “Like, if I want to talk to my mom, there’s usually another boy talking,” said Alin, 12.

The children’s disabilities include cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, autism, developmental delay and traumatic brain injuries. Several are in wheelchairs. Others have speech difficulties, and some are mildly mentally disabled.

The money to keep this household running comes from a variety of sources. Thirteen of the boys receive a total of about $19,500 a month in federal aid. Silcock runs a business that finds housing and help for the disabled, and Belles works about 30 hours a week from their house for International Christian Adoptions in Temecula, matching parents with children.

The parents also promote their kids’ acting careers: Five Silcocks are members of the Screen Actors Guild, and several have appeared on TV. In addition, nonprofit organizations and neighbors help with money, household items and food. This is especially important at Christmas, Belles said, when the children receive gifts donated from friends and nonprofits.

Not everyone, however, is enthralled with the family’s presence in their neighborhood. Some neighbors say they resent the attention the Silcocks receive. One former neighbor with three special-needs children said she moved, in part, because she was tired of competing for services.

“I think they have overburdened” the school system, said Tamara Adams.

Brian Garland, president of the Huntington Beach Union High School District Board of Trustees, said his district and another one running local elementary schools were meeting student needs. Although educating special-needs children is expensive, he said, those students are not competing against each other for resources.

“We need to give them everything we can to grow and mature as best they can, and we do a good job,” Garland said. Silcock and Belles take such ripples in stride, working hard to make things run smoothly while finding their rest where they can. Silcock said he runs errands to relax, and Belles prefers walking on the beach.

Mostly, they strive to make their house a home.

“Each kid is different,” Belles said. “Sometimes it takes trial and error. We don’t make it to every baseball game, but we try to get to the important ones.”

Javier, 13, said he sometimes worries what the future may hold. Living with 26 boys, he said, “is all chaos, but it’s cool. If they keep on adopting more and more kids, we’re going to have to expand the house.”

Will they?

“I don’t have a bottom line,” Belles said. “Probably we will adopt more.”