Ben has started a group therapy session with his occupational therapist. It started two weeks ago. His therapist said we would see big changes. But we were skeptical. Nothing seemed to be working so far. How could this be different?

Seems like lately the tantrums and inappropriate hands are getting worse and worse.

But over the past few days I must say I’ve noticed a difference.

And I know it’s completely because of Ryann at Kids In Sync.

She has an incredible way of getting Ben to do just about anything she wants under the guise of fun. It’s a real talent.

I don’t attend the group therapy sessions with Ben but every time he comes out she talks to me about their progress.

He has a lot of trouble taking turns. They work a lot on this in therapy. Before therapy if he didn’t get his way he would throw a complete tantrum and not tell us why.

Yesterday Jack handed out the gummy multivitamins to all the kids. Ben wasn’t first. But instead of an out of the blue tantrum, he simply said, “Jack, next time I want to be first.” It was music to my ears. I must have complimented him 20 times on his use of words.

Then today we visited the zoo.

Last time we climbed the treehouse at the Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo. I watched the twins while Adam watched to older boys. I turned around and was surprised to see Ben crying hysterically just outside the glass doors. Adam told me he was pushing and shoving and not moving, stopping the entire line of kids trying to climb through the treehouse.

This time the same pushing and shoving and not moving happened. I climbed up and got him and had to dragged him kicking and screaming out of the treehouse. Then I sat him on my lap and asked him what happened.

He explained that he didn’t like getting pushed or rushed through the treehouse. Again it was a major break through. “Okay”, I said. “We can work with that! Next time you can let the person who is pushing you go past you so they stop pushing. And Ben, next time I’ll try to pick a time that is less crowded so you don’t have to compete with so many people.”

Swinging in the Superman Swing with Ryann.

So far summer has been a bunch of rainy days stuck in the house or going to museums or dragging four boys on errands.

Every day I wake up hopefully that we are going to have a great summer day and every day it’s too cold or thunderstorming to do anything remotely summery.

This afternoon I finally felt the first taste of summer.

After the twins nap we packed up toys, a picnic dinner, water bottles, sunscreen, diapers, yada yada yada and walked over to North Avenue Beach.

I was only able to do it by myself because Jack was there to help. He pushed that stroller on a 20 minute hike to the beach that included two steep bridges.

We got a lot of double takes and one woman actually stopped me to ask if they were all mine.

It was sandy, wet, messy and awesome. Everyone played nicely together for a change. And once again Jack was super helpful, making sand cakes for all the kids and playing with each of his siblings.

Besides the normal Jack and Sam pairing, where Jack and Sam actually play together, my two sensory kids (Aaron has not been diagnosed but I do see a lot of similarities) had a bit of a pairing themselves.

Ben and Aaron eating sand, together.

I only had one moment where I realized it was not ideal to be alone at the beach with four kids.

Ben drank his entire water bottle on the way down and at one point he ran up to me, jumping and squiggling, and told me he needed to go potty. NOW.

I realized I couldn’t pack up four kids and put their shoes on and grab my stuff and run to the bathroom in time so I just told Ben to pee in the water.

So he did. He waded in up to his knees, then dropped his pants and peed as if Lake Michigan was his own private toilet.

It was my own fault for not explaining to him you should get all the way in and pretend you are swimming with your clothes on while you pee. I couldn’t even be angry at him. Jack and I had a good laugh about it, then Jack proudly admitted he did it all the time at the beach too.

In the end, the rain caught up with us. So did Adam. He was walking home from work while we were rounding the corner for the house.

This time, the rain didn’t bother me at all.

This morning the we packed up the kids and the junk that accompanies them everywhere they go (water bottles, diapers…) and headed to the Long Grove Strawberry Festival.

Definitely not in the city anymore!

Long Grove has a quaint, historical downtown. At the festival, downtown is lined with food stalls, kiddy rides, and live entertainment.

The twins enjoying the music.

While the twins danced, Adam took the older boys on some of the bouncy houses that were not suitable for our 2 year olds.

It was a gorgeously sunny day and there was music, the smell of fried foods and lots of fun things for kids to do. How could anyone have a bad time?

Sadly, Ben’s tantrums reared their ugly head once again. It seems to be a certainty these days that no matter where we take him, he will have a bad time.

This one was caused by his inability to finish a wipeout style bouncy house obstacle course. He was paralyzed on top of the balls and even after a long line formed after him and Adam went in and physically bounced him on all the balls, he still wasn’t happy. He wanted to do it himself, even though he was too small to accomplish it on his own.

He ended up missing the rest of the rides because he didn’t want to do anymore rides until he conquered the big red balls.

Train ride without Ben.

Once again his trantrums put a dark cloud over the whole day. At least this time Adam was with me so I didn’t have to cover all the kids and deal with the tantrum too. Adam pushed the stroller which freed up my hands to tease Ben out of his mood by carrying him back to the car, pretending that he was on “the mommy ride”. It was a ride that bounced, spun and turned him back to normal.

Luckily I don’t think the other kids were as effected by Ben’s mood as we were. Who would notice a tantrum between train rides and trips to the candy store?

Aaron’s first cow poke. I think he likes it.

How is everyone’s summer going? I’m four days in and I must say, it’s a rough start.

I was kinda hoping once it started I would be pleasantly surprised. That all my anxiety about watching four boys all day long was just worry. Unfortunately the worry was justified.

As you remember we started the week with Jack and his chipped tooth.

Then the entire week was covered in thunderstorms. Which kept us indoors a lot. One morning we tried the Museum of Science and Industry.

I was scared to try something so big and open with four kids but Jack promised to help. And he did. In fact having four kids was not the problem at the museum. The problem was Ben’s constant tantrums. We visited the tractors, waiting in line for our turn to sit. When we got to the front, all four boys got in. But Ben didn’t want to sit with Sam. Ben only wanted Jack with him. When his request was denied, Ben had a violent, screaming, flailing tantrum that ended in my picking him up while Jack pushed the stroller. I carried him, kicking and screaming to the lunch tables where he refused to eat until he got to ride with Jack only in the tractor.

One of the many tantrums this week.

After the other kids were done with lunch I let Jack take Ben on the tractors. Then Jack picked the trains to see next. Ben said, “Noooooo, it’s lunch time!”

One day we packed up a huge picnic and lots of drinks and headed out to the Morton Arboretum.

We were rained out within an hour. It took longer than that to drive there and back!

We were home early enough to nap the twins. I still had a helper so with only two kids awake and two adults I took an hour off of the kids. I came back to find that Ben had soaked my entire bathroom in dirty toilet water. He was dunking our newly cleaned towels directly in the toilet that he had just peed and pooped in and was flinging it everywhere.

The next day we met up with one of Jack’s school mate for a play date at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

I didn’t realize it was a free day until after we made the plans. The free day made the usually quiet museum a madhouse. Watching all the kids was so stressful I sweat and yelled through the entire museum. The guard reprimanded Ben three separate times, and one time told him he would not be allowed in if he didn’t listen. I was secretly pleased and angry at the guard all at the same time.

Ben spent a large part of this museum visit sitting in a time out. At one point I looked around to see about three angry mothers yelling at him. He was hitting one of their kids. Ben can not keep his hands to himself and often mistakenly perceives the world is out to get him.

Once again I was greeted with the look of disgust from other adults. It is almost a given that I will get these looks when I take Ben anywhere in public.

Tomorrow is Ben’s one-on-one therapy session, and I think I need to talk to the therapist about his elevated bad behaviors. I’m getting to the point where I’m not parenting him, I’m simply surviving him.

Well, I managed to finish my 100 days of real food 10 day pledge. How did I do, you ask?

Not so well.

I made it seven days. The unfortunate eighth day landed on a Saturday, a day that is almost impossible to control. We often go out to eat on the weekends and on that particular day we went out a lot. First, to check out Le Pain Quotidien, which just opened up the street from us. They have a bread basket option with spreads. I didn’t realize they had 14 different spreads! I was unable to keep myself from sampling them.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. After dinner out that evening, where I actually did manage to order something sugar and white carb free, despite the fact that we were eating at a pub – The Four Farthings Tavern and Grill, Adam suggested we take the kids to Insomnia Cookies for dessert. The set up is that you pick 2 cookies, then your choice of ice cream and make your own sandwich.

Sunday I was back on the wagon again. Committed to do it again, at least until the weekend.

I really enjoyed going to sleep every night without berating myself.

I also really enjoyed having very simple rules to follow. It kept me from eating the kids leftovers, from having chocolate for lunch instead of real food then starving all afternoon, and I really felt like I was doing something something good for myself each day.

This is not to say it wasn’t hard. Especially the first three days. Those were very hard. I spent a lot of time roaming around the kitchen looking in cabinets for a sweet fix.

I didn’t expect was how much food I had to pass up either. At my book club I had to pass up the vodka lemonades, the homemade plantain eggs rolls doused in sugar. That was tough because I love to try new things and I had never seen that before. I also had to pass up the beautiful gluten free cake. So much sugar and white carbs in an average day!

Or just how hard it would be to go out to eat and order directly from the menu without asking for substitutions.

Replacing snacks was so depressing. I was surprised that, because I had no sugar or white carbs to snack on how little I snacked. Even if I thought I felt peckish I would look at my options and opt to just wait until dinner. How many nuts and fruits can you eat before you are sick of them? As a result I was hungry for dinner for the first time in years.

And when I ate I would almost always be hungry afterwards. The old me would reach for sweets. The new me looked at the clock, noted the time then reassessed 10 minutes later. Most of the time I wasn’t hungry anymore. If I was, it was dried fruit and nuts again. Maybe cheese and some Ak Mak Crackers.

As austere as this commitment is, I think I want to adopt it as my new lifestyle. Maybe not every day, on the weekends I can relax a little, but keep it at least five days a week when I’m at home and can control my diet.

Did I lose any weight? Actually I did lose some. Around 3 pounds. Which is pretty impressive for just one week.

Now, please talk me out of moving onto animal cruelty next. I’ll seriously have nothing left to eat!

Although Jack’s last day of school was Friday, it didn’t really feel like vacation until Adam left for work in the morning and didn’t take Jack to school first.

For Jack, it was the first day of summer vacation.

How did it go for him?

Well, it started out pretty good. The weather was perfect and by 10am we had finally managed to make it to a park.

 Check out Jack’s mid air jump. I’d say he was having a good time. Everyone was so happy about the water spray that I texted this photo above to Adam and said, “Summer is officially here.”

Twenty minutes later I had to call Adam and let him know that Jack just bumped into another kid and fell face first on the floor, chipping off a chunk of his front tooth.

Adam told me to call the dentist and left the office immediately to pick him up. Thank goodness I rang him because I didn’t realize the urgency. It didn’t help that Jack wouldn’t let me look at it. I just happened to catch a glimpse of the tooth when he opened his mouth and noticed something looked off.

Sam comforts Jack after his fall.

Apparently if you chip your tooth you need to go in right away to get it fixed. If not you risk infection or loss of your tooth. He cracked straight into the dentin, but luckily didn’t hit a nerve. And hopefully it won’t die.

Adam was able to get an appointment to fix it that day. They asked him if he wanted a crown and Adam said, “No Way!”

Again, I probably would have screwed this up too, thank god he was there instead of me. He told them he wanted the least invasive procedure that safely protected the tooth. Instead they put an acrylic cap on it…

Please tell me this is the worst accident we’ll have this summer. If it’s starting out like this, how is it going to end?!

Happy Father’s Day!

Adam is on his 7th Father’s Day now and I must say this year felt a little different.

Most days that are reserved to celebrate Adam end with him jam packing as many activities as he can in a day. This year was actually quite mellow.

That is not to say he didn’t have his requests. One was breakfast in bed. The breakfast was to be made by ALL of us. But actually only Jack helped me out. The other three kids raided our bedroom and crawled all over him despite the fact that I told them to let him sleep.

The breakfast idea might have been a little premature. Instead of the leisure breakfast he envisioned, the younger boys descended on the strawberries, sticking their little fingers all over his plate.

Eventually he had to abandon the bed and come eat at the regular dining table.

Our present this year turned out really good. So good that Adam asked where I got it done. He was surprised to hear I did it myself.

The truth is I thought of getting it done at the Lincoln Park Zoo, at a stand called “Handimals”. The place was never opened when I could go with all four kids, so I just did it myself.

In the morning, we spent some time at the South Lakeview Park, also know as “The Blue Park”. There were so many Frogs there that we are now considering changing the name to “Le Parc Bleu”.

Other requests were to measure all the kids.

Jack was 51″, Ben 44″, Aaron 35″ and Sam 34″.

Also Adam wanted to play the game of Life with Jack, and Pokeman with Ben. “Okay,” I said, “As long as you don’t expect me to be this eager when it’s my day.”

I don’t think me or the kids did nearly enough to appreciate him the way he deserves but since he is the kind of guy who offered to let me take a nap with the twins during his day of absolute dictatorship, I figured he was happy with the way it turned out.

The kids have anxiously been awaiting cousin Jackie’s visit for weeks now. But in the last few days they have been asking about her a lot. Probably because we told them she was here, and staying in our basement since Wednesday. By Friday morning they still hadn’t seen her.

Seems odd that someone could sleep in our basement for 2 full days and not see our kids at all but that is because Jackie works really long hours. You see, Jackie is starting her own company. It keeps her very, VERY busy. She is completely committed to her company, www.cruzin.com, a boater to boater website rental. It’s really a very clever idea and if you are boater you will really appreciate it.

When she would arrive home late at night, Adam and I would stay up talking to her. Adam and her can relate on a business level, talking about different kinds of investor pros and cons and other business numbers and acronyms that go completely over my head. Surprisingly I found myself relating to her as well, but on a different level. When she described her complete commitment to the company, how she hasn’t taken a day of in years, I could TOTALLY relate to her. Because I’ve been doing that for about 7 years give or take a few days. Her company is her baby. Just like me, on bad days she is there just putting out fires, on good days she is trying to grow the company/baby with proactive activities.

Today she very kindly put aside her electronics and asked how she could help us out this afternoon. We wasted no time putting her to work. With four kids, when someone offers to help we are pretty much like, “yeah!”. Our standards are pretty low. Which makes the instructions minimal. “Watch that one, make sure he doesn’t harm himself or get abducted.”

With three adults we opted for the zoo. The zoo is tricky even with two parents and four kids. Because the chances of two of the four kids staying together are not good. Which means you are constantly herding instead of enjoying the sites.

We spent a lot of time at the train and carousel, in fact we hardly saw any live animals.Typical activities for our city kids, I guess. Jack has been asking to go to the Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo for ages to climb. Finally today we fulfilled the request.

See Jack in the yellow shirt and green pants?

Ben loved climbing too, but the twins were too scared. They found other things to look at, like the beaver swimming…Later we went to dinner at The Four Farthings. Jackie very nicely treated us to dinner. In return, we probably staved her off having kids forever.

Mom Tip: Bring sidewalk chalk to outdoor dining spots to keep the kids happy!

Aaron basically ate ketchup for dinner.

So did Sam.