The Making of M.O.M.

Our sweet Ashlee girl, how she delights my heart. She brings laughter, joy, silliness and affection into our home. She's just a fun person to be around.

She can tear through a math workbook at lightening quick speeds. She reads above grade level and enjoys all aspects of learning. She's a sharp one, that girl. However, she doesn't always use her smarts in her favor. This girl can keep us laughing that's for sure!

Two weeks ago we had a duel birthday celebration for Ashlee and Lucas. The boys used a nearby gym and had an indoor "campout" complete with wrestling matches, ball games and, of course, Star Wars. The girls had a sleepover at our house complete with a full nail and hair salon and capped off by Barbie movies.

Because the best part of a birthday is singing "Happy Birthday" to yourself.

After the weekend full of birthday festivities, Elizabeth was having a moment of pouting because she didn't think she was getting her fair share of birthday attention. My Mom pointed out to Elizabeth that she doesn't have to share her birthday and that in a few months, she'll have her very own special day and party. My Mom turned to Ashlee and said,

"You see Ashlee has to share her birthday, don't you Ashlee?"

To which Ashlee replied, flabbergasted, "WITH WHO?!?"

Anyway, back to the night of the sleepover. We had a good time and finally, at midnight ~~the girls decided it was time to settle down~~ there was a mother-enforced mandate to settle down. Since the time she was an itty bitty baby Ashlee has slept with a little blue bear we so originally named, Bear Bear. To fall asleep, Ashlee sucks on her bear's ear. She never took a pacci but she can hardly fall asleep without Bear Bear.

About 12:15am Ashlee appeared in the doorway of my bedroom.

"Ash, what's wrong sis?" I asked, thinking maybe she was upset about not sleeping in her bed.

"Momma," she said, with a worried look on her face, "I'm shy. I don't want any of my customers to see me chewing on my Bear Bear."

Earlier this week we sent the kids off to do their chores. One of our rotating chores is for one of the older 3 to clean one of the bathrooms. It was Ashlee's turn for that chore. She comes bounding into the kitchen, with a roll of paper towels under her arm.

"Mom?" she asks, "Where's the Oxyclean?"

"The what?" I reply.

"The Oxyclean!" she says again, like I'm dumb to even ask for clarification.

"Honey, we don't have any Oxyclean but we have the spray you always use to clean the bathroom. It's right there," I say as I point to the solution under the sink.

"But Mom! I need Oxyclean. You know. It gets the tough stains out!"

With hair color at her sleepover party

Indeed our Ashlee girl is a laugh a minute, our resident clown. Even if the majority of the time it's completely unintentional.

Alternately titled:

Soy ya later

or

Don't you dairy eat that

-----

Jello makes me gag. Not the taste but the texture. One day when I was in elementary school, I had a stomach ache. Some kid sitting beside me at lunch one day scooped all of his red jello into his mouth, looked at me and squished it through his teeth, spitting it onto his lunch tray.

I puked my own red jello all over myself and the table. To this day the texture of jello makes me queasy.

My point is, food affects us. All of us. Though my example above is a trivial one, you see my point. Nearly 25 years ago a simple thing changed the way I interact with a specific food.

We have a precious child who brings life, laughter and joy into our home. However, with her comes DRAMA. And I'm not talking about your typical drama where someone hits her or takes her toy and she looses it (though that happens as well). I'm talking about IRRATIONAL DRAMA.

Like, "THERE'S AN ANT!!! I'M GOING TO DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!! THE ANT IS GOING TO KILLLLLLLL MEEEEEEE!!!!" (Insert screams likened to those of someone being seared by hot coals repeatedly.)

Granted, our little treasure doesn't say those specific words because she's usually too busy drooling, screaming and clawing her way to the furthest corner of the house to use actual words. But you get the idea.

Bugs freak her out to put it mildly. She can fall down and scrape her knee open to bleeding and have a normal response. But if she bumps - or possibly barely scrapes her leg - on something much less painful, wails and thrashing ensues and our treasure LOSES HER EVER LOVING MIND.

Sand goes directly into her hair and impulse control? It's non-existent. She's been loosely diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, though I'm sure none of her medical charts say those exact words. But our sweet girl is certainly sensory seeking. Screaming, yelling, hammering, loud clapping, whooping and slapping are just a few of the (more annoying) ways our princess seeks sensory input.

Her impulsivity goes beyond the normal irrational impulsivity of children her age. If I directly ask her not to do something, she will look at me, smile and then do the exact thing I just told her not to do, despite knowing the consequence of her disobedience. She was drumming on the couch one afternoon near where Abigail was laying. Casually, I said "Please be careful or you will hit Abigail and hurt her." Our girl looked at me, looked at Abigail, a sly smile crept across her face and before I could yell "NO!" she hauled off and slapped Abigail in the face. Which is NOT in character for her. She loves her baby sister, all of our girls do. And they all dote on her endlessly with kisses and coos.

I feel like we are very consistent parents and we administer consequences for disobedience quickly and routinely. In fact, our little sweetie can often tell us the result of her disobedience when we sit down to talk with her before her consequence is administered.

Our treasure goes to one hour of Occupational Therapy per week and gets weekly adjustments at the chiropractor. Even still, our sweet baby girl just continues to display the behaviors listed above, plus a few that I've omitted.

I am quickly coming to the end of the knowledge that I have.

In December/January I read this book on child discipline (and I recommend it highly!) and through a series of events and conversations, realized that one of our pediatricians has done quite a bit of research on diet and how the food our children (and adults) eat can impact ADD/ADHD, sensory processing and host of other commonly diagnosed disorders.

We had some blood work done on our sweet girl and while none of it was absolutely, without a doubt conclusive, our pediatrician has suggested we do a two week trial period where we exclude all gluten, soy and dairy.

So, we're going to give it a try. I went grocery shopping today and MAN it was hard to find things without gluten, soy AND dairy. Usually eliminating one wasn't difficult but all 3 is very hard.

So, my friends, what do you suggest? Have you ever lived gluten, dairy and soy free or any combination of those?

We are a fairly healthy eating family and I typically cook the vast majority of our meals. But I know this trial period will not be easy. Our prayer is that we try for two week and either see a MAJOR improvement or none at all. At least then we can know where to go from there.

Thank goodness Jello isn't a staple food of a gluten, soy and dairy free diet. Or else, I'd be a gluten for punishment, wouldn't you say?

Ba doom ching.