Today I learned some very interesting truths about myself. Things that I had never noticed, exactly, but that had kind of been nibbling at the back of my brain. They have now been put into words and it was rather heartbreaking to realize....
We've been struggling the last few weeks (but its been an ongoing off again/on again issue for the last few years!) with Reece and his sleeping. After trying a prescription med only to have his sleeping get worse and worse, we feel at our wit's end. This morning, Reece and I started our morning at 2 AM! Yes, you read that right... Reece woke up at 2 am and NEVER went back to sleep!!! I didn't want to burden Jeff with it since he's swamped with haying and his regular job, so I dealt with it. By the time I woke Jeff up at 9 am, I had about had it. I was beyond exhausted, felt like I had no support (other than my dear husband!) and didn't know where to turn. It shouldn't have surprised me when a very close friend called at that very moment. I almost didn't answer the phone. I really didn't want to talk about ANYthing and I knew she would ask about Reece. But, I answered anyway.....
After telling her about our horrible night, she suggested that a group of women that she and I know get together and pray over him. Just the thought of it sent peace surging through my body. "Yes!" I thought, "Getting these prayer warriors all together with Reece would be just the thing!" We decided that I would call one of the ladies and she would call the others. So, I made my phone call.
And this is where I learned my lesson....
After pouring my heart out to this woman and rehashing my spiritual journey that has occurred simultaneously with my autism journey, I realized something....I had never REALLY trusted God with Reece!
For someone who considers herself to have a close relationship with the Lord, it was disconcerting. See, I'm a very smart, self-educated (with a few years of college thrown in!) person and for the last 4 years, while I prayed for a miracle cure for Reece, I felt like I was the one who had to figure out what that cure was. I was trusting my intellect and my researching skills and my love of science and medicine to make my son "normal."
And then she asked me something else....
"Have you ever thanked God for the autism? He's the one who has created Reece as He did."
Boy! Thanked God for AUTISM????? Was she NUTS?? Autism was my enemy, my nemesis, my thorn, my broken bridge to the Land of Normal.... Why the HECK would I be THANKFUL for it???? But, another truth began to dawn on my heart.... I daily thank God for my son, Reece, but you know what? Autism, no matter how much I don't want it to be there, is part of Reece. It is part of this family and it is shaping what kind of person I become, what Jeff will become and what kind of women my girls grow up to be. But, you know what? God has allowed autism to become part of Reece and by viewing it as my enemy, am I telling God that what He's created is not good enough???
And, then finally, my last lesson that I learned....
For the last 4 years, I have focused on the BIG PICTURE. What will Reece be like in a couple years.... in 5 years.... in 10 years..... yet, do I have any idea what Reece what kind of man he'll become? No, of course not. I have been so focused on curing him and making him normal so that he can lead a "normal" life as an adult, that I've forgotten that our lives are like a Mozart concerto....
I was a violinist (I say "was" because the violin got put on the backburner once the twins arrived!). I actually had a violin scholarship to college. I was pretty good. But, I remember the feeling when my teacher would hand me a new sheet of music. I'd look at it, gulp, and immediately feel stressed out and discouraged... all before I'd ever picked up my bow! But, if I broke it down, played one note at a time, eventually I got through it and each time I played it, I got a little better and a little better, until finally, it was mastered and ready to perform. I need to remember in life, to take one note at a time, instead of stressing about being able to play the whole piece perfectly the first time through. Only one note, then another, then another, until someday... I'll be standing before the King playing my masterpiece!
I leave you with my new strength that has helped me get through this day...
"Rejoice in the Lord, always. And, again, I say, rejoice!" Phillipians 4:4.
I will REJOICE in Reece and I will REJOICE in autism and I will REJOICE that the Lord chose Jeff and I to go through these daily struggles. Because without these our lives would be too perfect, and how would we ever truly learn to trust?
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Vinegar and Baking Soda
I have lots of random thoughts rambling around in my head, but to write a cohesive post, I decided to talk about my most favorite cleaning products! This was a topic of conversation yesterday between myself and my two cousins, whom I help homeschool.
My relationship with vinegar and baking soda started about 5 years ago, right before I found out baby #3 was on the way. I've always been frugal (or a cheapskate, however you'd like to look at it!) and in yet another effort to shave off some household expenses, I decided to begin turning towards cheaper cleaning products, i.e. vinegar. I didn't throw out my regular stuff, mind you, but decided to do some experimenting. But, alas, my experimenting was cut short when Lindy was conceived and I began my 8 month journey through my personal hell, called pregnancy. I was too sick to be creative and experiment, so what little cleaning got done (and there was very little!) was done with my usual, chemical stand-byes.
Enter in autism and the beginning of my new journey to cure it! After doing lots and lots of research into autism and causes and potential cures, I stumbled across a lot of research involving the harmful chemicals that we use everyday and add to our indoor pollution in the name of "cleaning" and "disinfecting." So, in one fell swoop, I threw out all my regular cleaners, bought some spray bottles and gallons of vinegar and forever switched over to the "green" option before "green" was cool!
Vinegar is a disinfectant that is just as effective as most commercial products. And it dissolves lime and makes windows and chrome sparkle. Plus, its totally safe for the kiddos! That was one thing that I loved the most- I could safely clean the bathroom while Lindy sat in her bouncy seat and watched.
I also began using baking soda for my toilet cleaner and degreaser. It also works wonders for clogged drains when mixed (in the drain) with vinegar.
Interestingly enough, after using vinegar for the last 4 years, my kids and I can no longer tolerate the smells of commercial cleaners. We HATE the cleaning aisle at the grocery store and Wal-mart. It makes our eyes burn and our noses stop up. I think most people are desensitized to the chemicals and fragrances in these products and so they don't notice them anymore.
If you're wondering if using only vinegar really does work as an effective disinfectant, well, I can honestly say that my family is rarely sick. We don't have many colds and the kids usually only run a fever once a year. We also haven't been to see the doctor for a sickness in well over a year!
In other quick news, the clonidine for Reece to help his sleeping is a total joke. After taking it for 9 nights, we've seen absolutely NO difference. He still doesn't fall asleep well and he still gets up in the middle of the night. Last night he was up from 2:30 to 5:30 am. On the plus side, his language has just sky rocketed in the last month!!! Don't know why, but, hey, we'll take it! He's actually using a word for his frustrations, too- "dangit!" I told Jeff its a good thing we don't cuss or I wonder what word he would've chosen then :-)
My relationship with vinegar and baking soda started about 5 years ago, right before I found out baby #3 was on the way. I've always been frugal (or a cheapskate, however you'd like to look at it!) and in yet another effort to shave off some household expenses, I decided to begin turning towards cheaper cleaning products, i.e. vinegar. I didn't throw out my regular stuff, mind you, but decided to do some experimenting. But, alas, my experimenting was cut short when Lindy was conceived and I began my 8 month journey through my personal hell, called pregnancy. I was too sick to be creative and experiment, so what little cleaning got done (and there was very little!) was done with my usual, chemical stand-byes.
Enter in autism and the beginning of my new journey to cure it! After doing lots and lots of research into autism and causes and potential cures, I stumbled across a lot of research involving the harmful chemicals that we use everyday and add to our indoor pollution in the name of "cleaning" and "disinfecting." So, in one fell swoop, I threw out all my regular cleaners, bought some spray bottles and gallons of vinegar and forever switched over to the "green" option before "green" was cool!
Vinegar is a disinfectant that is just as effective as most commercial products. And it dissolves lime and makes windows and chrome sparkle. Plus, its totally safe for the kiddos! That was one thing that I loved the most- I could safely clean the bathroom while Lindy sat in her bouncy seat and watched.
I also began using baking soda for my toilet cleaner and degreaser. It also works wonders for clogged drains when mixed (in the drain) with vinegar.
Interestingly enough, after using vinegar for the last 4 years, my kids and I can no longer tolerate the smells of commercial cleaners. We HATE the cleaning aisle at the grocery store and Wal-mart. It makes our eyes burn and our noses stop up. I think most people are desensitized to the chemicals and fragrances in these products and so they don't notice them anymore.
If you're wondering if using only vinegar really does work as an effective disinfectant, well, I can honestly say that my family is rarely sick. We don't have many colds and the kids usually only run a fever once a year. We also haven't been to see the doctor for a sickness in well over a year!
In other quick news, the clonidine for Reece to help his sleeping is a total joke. After taking it for 9 nights, we've seen absolutely NO difference. He still doesn't fall asleep well and he still gets up in the middle of the night. Last night he was up from 2:30 to 5:30 am. On the plus side, his language has just sky rocketed in the last month!!! Don't know why, but, hey, we'll take it! He's actually using a word for his frustrations, too- "dangit!" I told Jeff its a good thing we don't cuss or I wonder what word he would've chosen then :-)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Past Month
Yeah, so I thought I'd keep up on this blog a little better than this! But, this last month has had so much going on, I haven't had much time.
The first thing I had going on was the twins' 8th birthday party at the end of August. I have another post in the works detailing the party with pictures of the cakes, so hopefully, I'll feel like finishing that one sometime soon... And then we had our annual camping trip to Noel, MO. The details of which are in the aforementioned post..... Oh, and before all that, Reece started back to school. That's been, um, a disaster. I'm afraid I'm going to have a major fight on my hands to get the school to really do what I want. They seem to think that they don't need to take advice from a state-funded program on autism that helps small schools set up appropriate programs for their autistic students. So, Reece only goes from 1-3 in the afternoons. Going longer stressed him out so badly, it wasn't worth it, and besides, all they really did was babysit him, not educate him! But, that's a rant for another time..... So, after the Labor Day weekend camping trip, we came back and started our school. Elisa is a 2nd grader this year, although most of what she does is on a 3rd-4th grade level. This year I'm pulling out the big guns and using actual curriculum, instead of mostly making up my own like last year. Some of you may be appalled that I didn't use any official curriculum last year, but, seriously, first grade isn't that hard to figure out. She's reading well and has her math facts down pat. We started on memorizing the multiplication table last year, which we'll finish this fall. We also had fun doing random science experiments and we studied all 50 states. She also read books about different people in history. We had a blast!
This year, though, I decided it was time to employ my favorite books from a variety of companies. See, even though, I've only been homeschooling Elisa for a year and a half, I've been helping my aunt homeschool her kids for the last 10 years. Not to mention that when my mom was homeschooling my youngest brothers, she often asked my opinion on the books she was using. So, unlike alot of newer homeschoolers, I've developed my own preferences and have no need to try out a whole bunch of different curriculum.
What are my favorites? Well, we are using Saxon math (which is what Jeff did at Oxford and he loved it, too). For English, I love the Shurley English books. We use Apologia science (I was soooo pumped when they came out with an elementary school program. I've been using their high school science textbooks for the last 8 years and I LOVE them! Elisa picked Anatomy & Physiology for this year). I decided to study world geography this year since we'd hit the US last year, so we're learning about major countries on every continent. And, we using The Learnables Spanish. I took Spanish for 4 years in high school and minored in it in college, but I thought, why wait until high school to begin it? Elisa, and Lindy for that matter, would be much better off learning it at a much younger age. This is my first year for using The Learnables, but I LOVE it! It makes so much more sense than how we learned it in school.... And in addition to all of this, Elisa is learning cursive and I try to incorporate history into our daily lives. For instance, we just got done reading a shortened version of Huck Finn. We read a couple chapters every night before bed. The kids really enjoyed it :-)
So, that's our school, in a nut shell. Lindy is learning her letters and numbers, and also sits in for science, geography, English, and Spanish. I'm soooo glad Jeff has allowed me to do this!
Besides my own kids, I also tutor my two of my cousins (who are freshmen) in English 9 and science (we are doing physical science this year). And an acquaintance of mine is having me tutor her sophomore son in English 10 and science. My days are very full and my scheduling is tight, but I do love teaching!
This is probably the most scheduled my life has been since my own college days. I'm a somewhat organized person, and I like routines, but I also enjoy having flexibility in my routines, but this year, I decided I needed to be more rigid in some areas to lessen the stress. So, in that line of thinking, I made a weekly menu that I decorated, laminated, and hung it on the wall. That way, I know exactly what is for dinner and supper every day and I don't have to think about it. And, its generally the same every week, so its very predictable. I also designed it to use up the odds and ends of meat left in our freezer, to get ready for more beef, pork and deer later in the year. I'm trying very hard to make almost everything from scratch. I already make our own bread all the time, but I've decided to really make an effort to make our own hamburger buns (which I've done in the past, just not consistently) and our own tortillas and refried beans. Someday, I want to be almost 100% grocery store free......
In other news, we've decided to experiment with pharmaceutical drugs with Reece. If you know me very well at all, you know that I tend to be anti-drugs. I realize they have their place, but I also think they are completely over used in our modern lives. Reece has struggled with sleeping for years, with huge ups and downs. We used melatonin for years with him, but over time, it didn't seem to work anymore. This August, I tried some herbal combinations, which really seemed to work, until school started. We think that school stresses him out so badly that he can't sleep well. His school psychologist recommended trying Tenex with him. Apparently, he has another client in Wichita, a 6 year old autistic boy, that started taking this for sleeping and anxiety and its made a huge difference. Well, after talking and praying and researching it, we decided to take him to his developmental ped (who he hadn't seen in 4 years) to see what she thought. She felt like if we could give him a good nights sleep that it would help a lot of the irritability and other autistic behaviors that we see during the day. So, she recommended clonidine. He's been on it for 4 nights and it hasn't made a lick of difference. Plus, yesterday, he wouldn't eat anything! One of the common side effects is nausea, but since Reece doesn't have the greatest communication skills, we don't know if he would really tell us how he was feeling. Anyway, I'm really questioning using drugs on him now.....I mean, if he can't tell us anything, how are we to really know how its effecting him, other than by observation??? Its so difficult and I soooo wish there was a tried-and-true protocol for treating autism...... Or that we were Amish and Reece had never developed autism in the first place..... Did you know the rate of autism among the Amish is zero???? That's right.... there are no documented cases of autism among the Amish.... interesting, huh? But, we're not Amish, we're regular, normal people, and our son did become the 1 in 110 who became autistic. So, we try our best and I'll try harder to keep things updated :-)
The first thing I had going on was the twins' 8th birthday party at the end of August. I have another post in the works detailing the party with pictures of the cakes, so hopefully, I'll feel like finishing that one sometime soon... And then we had our annual camping trip to Noel, MO. The details of which are in the aforementioned post..... Oh, and before all that, Reece started back to school. That's been, um, a disaster. I'm afraid I'm going to have a major fight on my hands to get the school to really do what I want. They seem to think that they don't need to take advice from a state-funded program on autism that helps small schools set up appropriate programs for their autistic students. So, Reece only goes from 1-3 in the afternoons. Going longer stressed him out so badly, it wasn't worth it, and besides, all they really did was babysit him, not educate him! But, that's a rant for another time..... So, after the Labor Day weekend camping trip, we came back and started our school. Elisa is a 2nd grader this year, although most of what she does is on a 3rd-4th grade level. This year I'm pulling out the big guns and using actual curriculum, instead of mostly making up my own like last year. Some of you may be appalled that I didn't use any official curriculum last year, but, seriously, first grade isn't that hard to figure out. She's reading well and has her math facts down pat. We started on memorizing the multiplication table last year, which we'll finish this fall. We also had fun doing random science experiments and we studied all 50 states. She also read books about different people in history. We had a blast!
This year, though, I decided it was time to employ my favorite books from a variety of companies. See, even though, I've only been homeschooling Elisa for a year and a half, I've been helping my aunt homeschool her kids for the last 10 years. Not to mention that when my mom was homeschooling my youngest brothers, she often asked my opinion on the books she was using. So, unlike alot of newer homeschoolers, I've developed my own preferences and have no need to try out a whole bunch of different curriculum.
What are my favorites? Well, we are using Saxon math (which is what Jeff did at Oxford and he loved it, too). For English, I love the Shurley English books. We use Apologia science (I was soooo pumped when they came out with an elementary school program. I've been using their high school science textbooks for the last 8 years and I LOVE them! Elisa picked Anatomy & Physiology for this year). I decided to study world geography this year since we'd hit the US last year, so we're learning about major countries on every continent. And, we using The Learnables Spanish. I took Spanish for 4 years in high school and minored in it in college, but I thought, why wait until high school to begin it? Elisa, and Lindy for that matter, would be much better off learning it at a much younger age. This is my first year for using The Learnables, but I LOVE it! It makes so much more sense than how we learned it in school.... And in addition to all of this, Elisa is learning cursive and I try to incorporate history into our daily lives. For instance, we just got done reading a shortened version of Huck Finn. We read a couple chapters every night before bed. The kids really enjoyed it :-)
So, that's our school, in a nut shell. Lindy is learning her letters and numbers, and also sits in for science, geography, English, and Spanish. I'm soooo glad Jeff has allowed me to do this!
Besides my own kids, I also tutor my two of my cousins (who are freshmen) in English 9 and science (we are doing physical science this year). And an acquaintance of mine is having me tutor her sophomore son in English 10 and science. My days are very full and my scheduling is tight, but I do love teaching!
This is probably the most scheduled my life has been since my own college days. I'm a somewhat organized person, and I like routines, but I also enjoy having flexibility in my routines, but this year, I decided I needed to be more rigid in some areas to lessen the stress. So, in that line of thinking, I made a weekly menu that I decorated, laminated, and hung it on the wall. That way, I know exactly what is for dinner and supper every day and I don't have to think about it. And, its generally the same every week, so its very predictable. I also designed it to use up the odds and ends of meat left in our freezer, to get ready for more beef, pork and deer later in the year. I'm trying very hard to make almost everything from scratch. I already make our own bread all the time, but I've decided to really make an effort to make our own hamburger buns (which I've done in the past, just not consistently) and our own tortillas and refried beans. Someday, I want to be almost 100% grocery store free......
In other news, we've decided to experiment with pharmaceutical drugs with Reece. If you know me very well at all, you know that I tend to be anti-drugs. I realize they have their place, but I also think they are completely over used in our modern lives. Reece has struggled with sleeping for years, with huge ups and downs. We used melatonin for years with him, but over time, it didn't seem to work anymore. This August, I tried some herbal combinations, which really seemed to work, until school started. We think that school stresses him out so badly that he can't sleep well. His school psychologist recommended trying Tenex with him. Apparently, he has another client in Wichita, a 6 year old autistic boy, that started taking this for sleeping and anxiety and its made a huge difference. Well, after talking and praying and researching it, we decided to take him to his developmental ped (who he hadn't seen in 4 years) to see what she thought. She felt like if we could give him a good nights sleep that it would help a lot of the irritability and other autistic behaviors that we see during the day. So, she recommended clonidine. He's been on it for 4 nights and it hasn't made a lick of difference. Plus, yesterday, he wouldn't eat anything! One of the common side effects is nausea, but since Reece doesn't have the greatest communication skills, we don't know if he would really tell us how he was feeling. Anyway, I'm really questioning using drugs on him now.....I mean, if he can't tell us anything, how are we to really know how its effecting him, other than by observation??? Its so difficult and I soooo wish there was a tried-and-true protocol for treating autism...... Or that we were Amish and Reece had never developed autism in the first place..... Did you know the rate of autism among the Amish is zero???? That's right.... there are no documented cases of autism among the Amish.... interesting, huh? But, we're not Amish, we're regular, normal people, and our son did become the 1 in 110 who became autistic. So, we try our best and I'll try harder to keep things updated :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)