It's been 4 years.......

     Hard to believe, but this month of August, 2010 marks 4 years that we've had an autistic child.  He was actually showing major, huge signs at 3 1/2 years, but it took until almost 4 years old before we actually heard that dreaded word fall from the specialist's mouth.  Reece will turn 8 in a week and looking back on our journey with this special boy, I honestly thought that by now he'd be cured.  In fact, when he got his diagnosis, I was sure that by age 7 we might be struggling with some minor speech articulation and maybe a little reading trouble, but never in a million years did I think he would still be..... autistic.  Have I lost all hope?  No.  Naive or ignorant I am not, but when it comes to this mysterious disorder, if I give up then I've lost him.
     It seems so sad to me because as Reece's baby and toddler years get farther and farther behind us, I find myself grasping to remember the boy before the autism.  Sometimes I see him, but other days, I don't.  I find myself struggling with jealousy of parents whose little boys are fine and normal.  These parents will never have to wonder if their boy will ever be able to live as an independent man.  They can confidently dream about what he will become without wondering "Will he be one of those people that can only sack groceries?" 
     These past couple weeks have been wonderful at some times and soooo frustrating at others.  Sometimes Reece can act so NORMAL!  Like when he cleaned and polished his off-road trike before he took it for a spin.  Or when I caught him talking to himself and making funny faces in the mirror.  Or when he was recounting the story of the turtle biting him or when I had to stop him from "riding his bike to Grandma's house".  But, for every "normal" moment, there are 4 autistic ones.  Like when he lets out a blood curdling "autistic" scream in front of a visitor.  Or when he gets so mad that all he can do is stim, stim, stim.  Or when he gets into things, just like a 2 year old would do.  I could go on and on and on. 
     One thing I have learned though, is that I think I appreciate those "normal" moments much more than the average parent.  When you're not really sure what will become of your little guy, you treasure all the wonderful little things.  You call your husband at work, just to tell him some little sentence that Reece said.  Or you take a picture of him washing his trike.  Or you sit and savor the sound of his interaction with his twin sister.  These are things that I think I would take for granted if I had never had a special needs son. 
     When I first became pregnant with the twins and we found out that we were having a boy and a girl, I just assumed everything would be fine and they would perfectly normal children, just like my siblings and me.  It never once occurred to me that God would have a completely different plan for Jeff and me.  I use to wonder "Why me?  Why does He think I can handle this but not other mothers?"  But, after 4 years, I've learned that I may never know "why" but I do know that I CAN!  And, even though I still have all the hopes and dreams for Reece that every mother has for her little boy, I have learned that if he never reads, if he never lives independently, if he never has children of his own, none of that really matters.  The only things that really truly matters is that Jeff and I teach him about Jesus and his saving grace.  God will give Reece the understanding that is sufficient, but, unless Reece hears us pray, listens to us read the Bible and sees faith in other fellow Christians, he will be lost.  So, that is my number one priority.  I will never stop in my quest to cure him, but I won't ask "Why me?" nearly as often! And I will treasure this wonderful, unique, unusual and oh-so-special little boy that God decided to entrust us with.

Country Fun- Swimming at a Crik!

     Today was a good day!  We got to go swimming in a local crik (yes, I spelled that right!  I grew up ALWAYS referring to "creeks" as "criks."  A country/farm thing, I guess!).  Its actually located in the neighboring county, but we didn't mind the half hour drive.  Its a gorgeous place!  The water actually runs under an antique stone bridge and the swimming area is extremely deep, but there was a very large area where it was very shallow, which was great for Lindy and for us moms just to sit in and visit.  The crik is located on private land, but the farmer that owns it lets the public swim there.  Isn't that awesome?  I'm not sure I would be so generous...
     Anyway, the kids all wore life jackets and had so much fun playing and floating!  There's even an old rope tied to a giant oak for swinging out on.  I didn't even attempt it; I'm sure my upper body strength is not what it use to be, plus I had a very bad experience once as a teenager jumping off a rope into our pond (I got awful rope burn on my arm and decided maybe jumping off a rope wasn't as much fun as people made it out to be!).  Amazingly, though, Elisa actually did it!  She's become a very good swimmer this summer and passed the deep end test at the public pool, but she's been too scared to actually go off the diving board.  I honestly was sure she would chicken out with the rope!

     We plan on going back at the end of the week.  

     In other little news, I made a sleep tincture today for Reece.  What is a tincture, you might ask?  Well, its a concentrated herbal syrup.  Its more potent than a tea.  They are very easy to make in the crock pot.  Reece has been having a VERY difficult time sleeping this summer (not uncommon for autistic children).  He would be put to bed at 9 pm (and we have a very strict bedtime routine), but then would proceed to get out of bed, literally, every 10 seconds.  So, our policy is you go straight back to bed.  I would take him back to bed like this until about 11:30pm or so.  Oh, he'd get spanked, too (we believe in Biblical discipline).  Then, he'd sleep for a few hours and wake up about 3 am.  So, I'd get up again and put him back to bed.  Some nights he'd go back so sleep, but many nights he wouldn't!  It was awful!  At first I was sooooo tired, but like what happens when you have a newborn, my body adjusted.  Sure, it wasn't fun, but I could still function during the day.  I figured that eventually, Reece would get the idea that I was more stubborn than he and so he'd stay in bed and sleep all night.  He does have spurts where he's a very good sleeper.  Anyway, after continuing this routine for the entire month of July, I decided to try some herbs that I'd never used on him before.  I love using herbs and, although I'm no expert, I research them and have learned a lot and have seen how well they can work!  So, I had this stuff from the Bulk Herb Store (check them out online; wonderful place!) called a Snooze Tincture.  It was actually the dried herbs (chamomile, oatstraw, lemon balm, hops, passion flower) mixed together.  You add vegetable glycerin and a little water and cook it for 3 days.  But, before I went to the trouble of making a whole tincture, I decided to just make a hot tea for him using these herbs.  Reece loves hot tea!  Well, coincidence or not, the first night we tried this, he only got out of bed twice and slept all night!  Hhhhmmmm..... maybe we were on to something.  But, I wasn't a believer yet.  So, for a whole week now we've been drinking the tea and he only gets out of bed about twice and only sometimes wakes up at night, but if does, he always falls back asleep!  During the day, its like I have a whole different child!  His language has improved and he's not NEARLY as moody as he had been.  Then, to top it all off, tonight I tried a very small dose of the tincture AND had him drink the tea, and he NEVER got up once!!!!  So, we'll if he sleeps all night.... let me tell you, though, just to have him stay in bed and fall asleep right away is a blessing :-)  So, I'm off to enjoy my peaceful and relaxing evening.....  Good night!

My First One.....

     After much thought and prayer, I decided to join in the blogging phenomenon.  As my first official post, I'd thought I'd first give a more detailed background of the Donley family! 
   First and foremost, we love the Lord and do our best to follow Him in everything we do and say.  Of course, we are not perfect, but our goal in life is to lead our children (and hopefully others!) to Him by our example in our everyday lives.  We don't lead a charmed life (as you will learn if you decide to follow my blog!), but we know that "all things work for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose."  (Romans 8:28).

     The head of the Donley family is Jeff....

     He's a 5th generation farmer in the same area that his ancestors settled in 1871.  He's a workaholic and a great father and husband :-)  After farming fulltime for 2 1/2 years, he went back to being a machinist at a local factory in a neighboring town and farms in his off time.  He's been back at his town job for almost 3 years.  He likes it, but he loves farming more and our goal is to farm fulltime again in the near future.  Unfortunately, he works second shift, so the kids and I have learned to have our own afternoon and evening routines without him.  Basically, his life consists of 40 hours a week at his town job and 40 hours a week on the farm.  Needless to say, we have no hobbies, no social life and very little downtime, but we don't mind.... usually!

I, of course, am the second in command.

       My oldest daughter, Elisa, is in the picture with me, because I have absolutely no pictures of me alone!  I'm always the one behind the camera :-)  I have been a stay-at-home mom since my twins were born.  I was raised on a big farm a few miles east of where we live now.  I loved living and working on my dad's farm and always wanted to marry a farmer!  As I've gotten older, my interests have included nutrition, herbs, gardening, cooking from scratch, raising animals for meat and eggs, and autism.  I would have loved to have been a pioneer woman back in the 1800's!

This is our son, Reece Jefferson.

     He is the oldest of the twins (by 4 minutes :-)  His main love in life is farming.  This kid can sit on a tractor or combine for 8 hours and never fall asleep or act bored.  He absolutely loves to go anywhere and everywhere with his daddy or his Grandpa Jim (Jeff's dad, who farms the Donley farm fulltime).  Reece had a rough start in life with an 8 day stay in the NICU and a year of physical therapy.  After he met all his baby milestones on time and "tested out" of physical therapy by his first birthday, we were sure the worst was behind us.  Unfortunately, we were very wrong!  Our autism story isn't much different from everyone else's.  We noticed around 18 months that he'd quit talking, but other than that, there were no major warning signs.  He was in speech therapy at age 2, but it wasn't until he was 3 1/2, that he really spiraled into autism.  Overnight, literally, we lost him.  He began stimming incessantly and refused to make eye contact or interact with any of us.  After waiting months to see a specialist, we got his official diagnosis right around his 4th birthday.  He's considered mildly autistic, but, I've learned, that to a large extent, autism is autism, no matter how mild or severe.  We love our little guy dearly, but its been a very difficult journey.  We have very few resources in our area to deal with this disability, so we and the school do the best we can.  I still have hope that someday Reece will be able to live a normal life and I even pray for his future wife :-)  That's why I chose that verse to be in the heading of this blog.  I know, without a doubt, that God has given Reece a hope and a future.  You will learn so much more about Reece and our struggles with autism, but we try so hard to not let autism rule our life.

This is Elisa Ray, Reece's twin sister and our oldest daughter...

     This girl is my right hand man and I don't know how I ever got along with her!  She is so smart and helpful :-)  She's very creative and her number one interest in life is art.  It seems like she's always in the middle of some creative project.  She's wonderful with Reece, too.  She and Lindy (our youngest) are best friends and are always using their imaginations!  We started homeschooling her a year and a half ago, when she was halfway through kindergarten.  We missed having her around and poor Jeff would go all week and not see her, due to his second shift schedule.  Throw in the fact that she was ahead of her peers academically and was learning and picking up things that were very un-Biblical, we decided homeschooling was a better option for us.  She and I have so much fun "doing" school together!  She's one of those self-motivated learners and can't wait to get started everyday.  She also loves to bake and since she can read now, she bakes cookies, brownies, rolls, whatever she wants, without any help from me!  

And last, but definitely not least, is our "baby", Lindy Sue...

         Pictured with her, is her newly acquired Indian baby that she bought while on our recent vacation to the Black Hills.  This girl is in LOVE with baby dolls!!! She has been obsessed with playing mommy since she was 10 months old (she started walking at 9 months, so she subsequently, acted much older than her actual age!).  She really wants a real baby in our family so she can take care of it, but, I told her, that unfortunately, that won't be happening :-(   She also is into Polly Pockets and making up elaborate stories.  It wouldn't surprise me if she's a writer someday....  Lindy acts very old for her age, most of the time, which I think comes from being around her older sister.  She's into all things GIRL and for the last year has refused to wear any other clothing, but dresses!  That is soooo unlike her tomboy mother :-)  She has her own opinion about everything and she is very much a mama's girl, although, the older she gets the more time she likes to spend with her daddy.


     So, that is the end of my first post and I hope you've got a good handle on what our family is all about!  I don't know how often I'll post on this blog; I'm guessing it will vary a lot depending on what's going on around here.... so, talk to ya later!!!