Today I took Ben to the Chicago Public School’s free developmental screening. The councilor at the school he will be going to, the one Jack currently attends, suggested this. It is the first step in admitting Ben is not developing like a normal kid and he needs extra help or he won’t make it.

I duly drove out to one of the testing sites provided by the Office of Diverse Learner Supports and Services. I noticed none of them were conveniently located anywhere near our house. I drove about 40 minutes to this one.

On the way over I noticed how just different a mere three highway stops can be in Chicago.

Gone were the boutique shops and brand name luxury shops. I noticed there wasn’t a single woman jogging in her Lululemon pants. In fact, no one was exercising on this beautiful, sunny day. I saw a few cyclists, but none of them were wearing the padded butt pants that are common on my street. Mostly I passed auto repair, fast food, and check cashing places.

When we got to the site every evaluator was taken so we waited our turn. While I was waiting I heard the guy in front of me tell the evaluator that when his daughter was young, their mother used to put them in front of the TV and let them watch all day. He said, “We had a VCR with about 5 different movies, Home Alone, and some others, and they watched them over and over again.”

Two other kids had massive tantrums and I was pleased that Ben, for once, did not. He seemed very eager to do the test and willing to participate.

The woman who signed in after me presented the receptionist with a letter from DCFS.

After seeing the other kids I wondered if in fact I was ‘one of them’. Most days I find Ben a handful, but because I also have three other kids displaying their own weirdness, I just kind of look at him as normal but with a few more hang ups.

Well, that theory gets thrown out of the water when you watch him in a testing situation. Taking Ben to the park daily and giving him an enriched lifestyle with healthy food made me no different than anyone else in here.

Ben failed the block stacking test, he failed to draw almost all the shapes, he could not answer even the questions he KNEW the answers to without extra prompting. He couldn’t balance on one leg. And when he did answer something right, he was so proud he would continue to answer it right even though Ms Patty was asking him the next question.

In the end ALL FOUR of the areas they test for developmental delays were checked off: Cognitive/Academic Skills, Communication Skills, Motor Skills, and Social-Emotional Skills.

What does it mean?

It means that we now have the go ahead to get Ben screened for an IEP. An IEP, or Individualized Education Program, is a special document that may get him anything from an aide to getting extra time on tests. It is completely individual to the student. At the next meeting not only will they test him in more detail, but they will come up with a plan right there and then.

She warned me part of the plan may be to put him in a special school. We don’t have to do this but she put it out there which I’m grateful for. I’d hate for that to be sprung on me.

It’s hard enough admitting to myself he’s not developing like a normal kid.

School is out for the summer in a week and I’m starting to get my normal pre-summer jitters.

After Ben got booted from the gym the weather miraculously warmed up. Which saved my sanity, but also made me feel like I couldn’t futz around the house and blame it on the weather. Instead of bringing the kids to the gym every morning for socialization, arts and crafts, story time and all the other fun stuff they provided, I was now responsible for their morning fun.

A morning at the Peggy Notebaert Museum.

We’ve been visiting parks around the city and museums each morning, followed by afternoon romps at Jack’s school playground, then sometimes we even hit a third playground while Jack practices baseball or soccer.

Twins discovered a mud puddle on a cold day. I had to strip them to their diapers to put them in the car after this incident!

It’s starting to get full on. And in another week Jack gets added to the roster.

Not all bad, here was a nice surprise. A guy shows up and starts singing kids songs in the park.

Now that I’m in “Julie McCoy” mode, I’m starting to think just how much more difficult it will be with one more.

Ben pointing me to his missing clothes.

Today I was immersed in so many tears, fights and messes I didn’t think I could take anymore. Just a few highlights for you… While sunscreening the twins, Ben covered our entire stroller with sand – jackets, lunch box, everything. Another bright spot of our park visit was when I was pulling a screaming Aaron off of some stranger, another father that he had attached himself too (I had to chase him down and literally pull him off the guy as he was trying to leave the park), I turned around I saw Ben running around shoeless, sockless, and yes, pantless. I’m pretty sure Ben managed to squeeze over 30 tantrums into the day. The twins locked themselves in the bathroom together while I was cooking dinner and when I found them they had covered the entire bathroom in toothpaste.

All in a day. And it’s a typical day. But with just three kids. Soon to be four.

Lord help me.

Did everyone have a good memorial day weekend?

Sometimes when you get long weekends it’s nice to get away, but more often than not when you have small kids, it’s nice to stay at home and use the extra day to just slow things down and relax.

This is not to say we were not busy this past weekend.

We took some of Adam’s clients to Topolobampo, Rick Bayless’ award winning restaurant. They changed the menu from the last time we were there. From a la carte to pre-fix. You can now order 3, 5 or 7 courses. It was an amazing dinner. Sometimes when a restaurant is so hyped up you can be disappointed but I wasn’t in the least. It just made me even more of a fan of his. In fact, we recently started to frequent his casual restaurant next door, Xoco when we need a quick, inexpensive Bayless fix.

Speaking of eating out, we spent a lot of time eating out this weekend. We hit the The Burger Bar after Jack’s soccer game Saturday. We also went to The Original Pancake House after trying unsuccessfully for a table at Summer House Santa Monica. We love the food at Summer House but in the end we realized it probably worked out for the best as the pancake house is much better for kids.

After breakfast we were right next to the zoo so we headed over there for a while.

The zoo always makes me feel weird. On the one hand I’m happy people from all walks of life can see these exotic animals up close but I often feel bad for the animals. Especially ones that you know would be running wild in their natural habitat.

Still, the kids really enjoyed it. 

Above they make a short stop to see the lion between riding the carousel and train…

Another family photo this year!

We also had a couple of play dates. One was with the Gahans at Oz Park.

Lots of boys running around with balls.

Vivian, the only girl at the testosterone laden play date, is about the same age as Ben. They have a love/hate thing going on. It’s about 90% hate and 10% love.

More eating out. This time we had the pizza delivered to the park.

And even more eating out. Embarrassingly this is our third ice cream store this weekend!

Memorial Day we met our friends the Smith’s for a pool and dinner (yes, I don’t think I washed a single dish this weekend) date at the East Bank Club. They have a daughter who is Jack’s age and they did their normal play date dance, where they ignore each other until the play date is about to be over and they suddenly discover just how fun the other one is. I didn’t get any pictures because I didn’t want any of my kids to drown and it’s hard to sneak them in with the no picture policy there.

We woke up this morning very rested. And sad it was all over.

Hope all my readers enjoyed their weekend as much as we did!

Sensory Processing Disorder or (SPD) is still fairly a new concept. Which makes it difficult for most parents. It’s considered “on the spectrum” like ADHD and Autism, but unlike those two that are well known and accepted, SPD is something most people never hear about until they come across it firsthand.

SPD also displays a wide variety of symptoms so it is hard to pinpoint easily, even if you have some personal experience with it. Which is amazing considering they say that at least 1 in 20 people are affected by it.

So how does Ben’s sensory processing present itself?

Our son Ben is a sensory seeker, but there are kids with just the opposite problems, instead of looking for intense experiences, they shy away from them.

Ben craves oral stimulation. He feels the need to put everything in his mouth.

Eating Sand

Tree licking

Ben is very tactile.  When he eats, he often will make art with his food for hours if you let him…

If things don’t go Ben’s way he has difficulty coping with it. He will often throw tantrums for the slightest miscommunication or if he can’t get things exactly the way he wants. When everything else in your body is out of control, having control in other areas of very important.

Flailing tantrums everywhere.

The worst of the sensory seeking problems is Ben’s inability to keep his hands to himself. Again, tactile. All our boys wrestle with each other, but Ben needs to have his hands or body on or against someone constantly.

Aaron doesn’t mind it as much as the others.

He is also very clumsy. This is because his vestibular system is either underdeveloped or developed wrong. It is the essence of sensory processing and the root of all the other problems, if you believe the research. Walking down the street and holding hands with him, I may find him trip on his own feet a few times a minute. In occupational therapy she spends a lot of time swinging and lifting heavy things to help develop this system.

But with all these problems comes an incredible mind.

Ben, our deep thinker.

Every day he amazes me with new concepts he grapples with. Just this morning he was asking me if we can use the stove in the past. I had to explain to him what the difference between past, present and future where and how, because we can not travel in time we can not use the stove in the past. Then he wanted to know if the stove existed in the past. Amazing stuff. Every day it’s a wonder to me how his brain works.

Perhaps the underdeveloped part of his body is compensated for with the overdeveloped brain power.

I think one of the hardest things about it is that, because your kid looks perfectly normal, no one realizes he isn’t. So they have a certain level of expectation that he can’t possibly live up to.

Are you wondering if your kid is 1 in 20 with a sensory processing disorder? You can take a test here.

While browsing the internet for stuff about sensory processing disorders, I came across a lot of interesting reads like the Huffington Post’s Heidi Brod’s article, Dianne Craft MD’s hidden allergies article, and Rage Against the Minivan’s treatment article.  It seemed like it was all over the internet that Allergies co-exsist with SPD. Gluten and dairy seem to be common culprits. My friend Jennie first suggested I take out food dyes, which I did. I didn’t notice any major changes in Ben’s behavior because of it, but it made me wonder if food dyes could effect children’s behavior, surely so could other foods he ingests?

I read numerous posts on people who had kids diagnosed whose tantrums and other negative behaviors were miraculously cured by figuring out they had a food allergy.

Sound to good to be true?

This week I took Ben gluten free. I didn’t even bother to inform him, unlike the last time.

Once again I hit the store and bought foods to sneakily replace the ones we had at home. Would the boys notice?

The first thing I made was Amy’s Cheese Pizza. It did not have the chewy quality of wheat crust. Instead it tasted vaguely like cornmeal. The crust was more delicate but it held together enough for the kids to eat it with their hands, cut like in triangles. They all ate it and no one was the wiser. In fact, for the youngest ones I think they preferred a less chewy quality. Usually they just lick whatever the topping is off the bread, this time they actually ate it all. I thought the taste of the pizza was really good and I would eat this again for sure.

Next I tried out King Arther’s Gluten Free Cookie Mix. I added chocolate, white chocolate, and peanut butter chips.Again the kids had no idea they weren’t traditional chocolate chip cookies. I felt there was a sandlike quality and it didn’t crisp up as much as a cookie but that didn’t stop me from eating 4 of them the night we made them. So, if I had a choice I’d probably chose the regular ones. If I had to go gluten free I’d probably go back to the 5 ingredient almond butter cookies. Mostly because I know exactly what goes into them more than they trump the gluten free mix taste wise.

One morning I made my regular pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. I thought these tasted perfect and could tell no difference when they were hot. However, I ate a leftover pancake that had been sitting in my car after a trip to the museum (don’t judge me) and once it was cold I noticed again that plastic, gritty taste seemed to prevail with all the gluten free replacements I was using.

Perhaps I was doing it all wrong. Perhaps if you really need to go gluten free than you should change your menu completely. After all, when I tended towards veganism, I didn’t try to find vegan turkey slice replacements for my sandwiches. I ate a salad instead.

Still, I didn’t want to completely revamp my kitchen just yet. I just wanted a gluten free week to see if there were any changes in behavior.

But halfway through the week I was feeling really sorry for my gluten intolerant friends – wheat is in EVERYTHING!

Here is another night of braised celery and carrots, Ancient Harvest Gluten Free Veggie Curls Pasta, and bison meatloaf with coconut flour instead of bread crumbs.

Then I tried more stuff – Apricot Power Bars (they tasted like home made Lara Bars) and a batch of granola bars inspired by Ina Garten’s Granola Bars (this time I added dried apples, pumpkin seeds and chocolate chips and used almond butter and no brown sugar).

My friend Laurie told me it takes a good 3 or 4 days to get it out of your system and many websites say you see results within a few days.

After a full seven days I was both happy and sad to find out that none of my kids are gluten intolerant. Ben’s bouts of tantrums didn’t lessen in the least, nor did it make transitions any easier. It also had no effect on Aaron’s persistent diaper rash.

I was so hoping for an easy, miraculous fix for Ben, something like changing a simple thing in his diet. Unfortunately I think it’s just going to have to be a lot of hard work and patience that gets us through this.

Oh well, at least we can treat ourselves with REAL chocolate chip cookies along the way!

The fact that it was 45° and rainy this morning did not dampen the excitement Jack’s 1st grade class had for their Chinatown field trip today.

In fact, it pretty much rained icy cold water on us all day. Jack’s first grade teacher made a wonderful, educational scavenger hunt and tic-tac-toe game to help us learn more about Chinatown.

I’d like to say we kept it all educational, but in fact there was a lot of shopping too…

Which resulted in a bunch of boys running around with these…

I tried to calm my inner helicopter parent instinct which was telling me guns and swords were a bad idea and enjoy the moment. Luckily they were so cheap half of them were broken before the end of the trip.

When we got to the restaurant I noticed all the girls had fans. Which made me wonder if our gender stereotypes are ingrained or taught. I later learned the girls wanted swords but were talked out of it. As a mother of boys, I didn’t think I could let my boy not have one when the other boys did. So, I guess nurture won over nature this time around.

After lunch we got some goodies from my favorite bakery in Chinatown, Saint Anna Bakery. Jack very nicely shared them with his brothers after the trip…

It was super cute to hang out with all those happy, silly 1st graders all day but I do have a whole new respect for his teacher. I already thought she was amazing but seeing her in action make me feel like extremely fortunate that Jack goes to the school he does.

For some reason I always approach holidays that celebrate myself with hesitation.

It seems egotistical to celebrate my own fabulousness, and when Adam asks me what I want to do that day I feel that I am inflating my own self-worth by requesting stuff. Then in the very same thought, even as I am scared to make the schedule, I am worried that I’ll be disappointed by the day because it won’t make me feel special enough.

I realize it’s a tough line to walk for the poor hubby!

I did pull the usual Nikki celebration card, where I celebrated mother’s day for numerous days. When Adam asked what I wanted I told him a sitter for Saturday, the day before. He was out of town and I had 3 different games for the older boys. Covering the twins would be a nightmare during Ben’s game. Because of his disorder I have to be with him at all times, even on the field. I was hoping since I didn’t have the twins I could finally get some great photos but of course I forgot to charge the camera so it was dead.

Still, the iPhone helped. 

Jack at baseball. You can’t see here but I was the only parent to forget his baseball hat.

Jack at soccer. I was the only mom to get the color socks wrong. See, when people ask me “how I do it” with four kids the answer is, not very well!

As far as actually mother’s day, my day started with cards from Adam and the kids. I was especially touched by the one Jack wrote to me in school.

It says: Dear Mom, I am going to hug you when I get home so much. I made a flower pen. (see it below the letter?) When I get home I love mom. You are pretty mom. I love your cooking. Love, Jack.

Next we headed over to Summer House for a little brekkie. They have retracted the roof and it was lovely to sit semi-outdoors, amidst all the other mothers in their floral dresses and husbands with pink button downs. I guess spring is here. Adam and I were dressed in jeans and between four kids there wasn’t a button among them. Sam refused to sit and they didn’t have enough high chairs so we toughed it out with regular chairs. I do love the food their though, the portions sizes are much more realistic for a woman with no self control. And each time I go I think, next time I’m going to order blah, blah and blah.

I didn’t want to punish Adam for the fact that it was a day to celebrate all the poop I clean and tantrums I endure, although leaving him with all the kids all day did cross my mind. Instead I controlled my inner diva and opted for a park after breakfast.

We went to Montgomery Ward Park. One of our favorites. That thing Jack and Ben is on actually spins.

The twins favorite thing at the park was the water fountain.

Kind of annoying how there is never any public restrooms anywhere near these parks. Luckily Jack has perfected the art of inconspicuous tree peeing. Ben, on the other hand, likes to pull his pants down, then run to a few different trees with his pants at his ankles before deciding where to go.

Afterwards we picnicked next to the park. You can see boats on the river and cars from the highway. Aaron loves to spend hours pointed them all out.

Another request I had for mother’s day was for Adam to spend some time batting with Jack and Ben. You can see them in the far right practicing.

Eventually everyone joined in. Later, during nap time, I had MORE mother’s day requests. For Jack to learn how to tie his shoes and for Ben to put all the wet laundry into the dryer (an exercise suggested by sensory disorder websites). Adam duly did both of these requests while I wandered around shops and eventually went for a run.

Jack was able to tie his shoes on his own twice. May this mother’s day always be remembered as the day Jack learned how to tie shoes!

Ben fell all over the place helping with the laundry and Adam had to prop him up. This is how I know it was a good exercise for him. Because at 4 and 1/2 years old, your balance for something like that should be much better.

As I’m writing this blog I’m waiting for Adam to come downstairs from putting the older kids to bed so we can eat the yummy Thai food that I ordered in.

And so I am signing off. Another wonderful mother’s day for me. I hope all the other moms reading feel as happy and lucky as I do today. Thanks Adam for making it all possible!