Some friends found 12 boxes of old books that someone had dropped off at the local recycling center. They were allowed to take the ones they wanted, and lovingly searched through a box for my family. I began reading a book by Charles R. Swindoll titled “Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back, Persevering Through Pressure.” The title reminded me of the dilemma many of us face parenting our FAS children, except maybe the other way around. Just when I think I am making some progress with my nearly 16-year-old daughter, she seems to regress further than before. A paragraph in the first chapter seemed to crystallize the basis of my frustration in parenting my daughter afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Occasionally we find streaks of poop (feces) on the bathroom walls next to the toilet, about head level if a person were sitting. Nobody is always the one accused of this dastardly deed. We have never been able to identify the real culprit, even though it has been going on for several years. However, this time, there was a perfect handprint. This reminds me of the pop tart caper last month. I found a pop tart with a perfect bite taken out of one side behind the piano. Nobody put it there, so we held it up to each child’s mouth to find the owner. Sure enough, it was the 15-year-old. Her lies are beginning to flow as smoothly as the air she breathes out.

Today, our 34-month old daughter, asked her big sister to paint her fingernails. We paint fingernails outside, as the smell affects those suffering from asthma symptoms. Outside they went and I soon followed to feed the horses. My toddler daughter then decided that she wanted to feed the horses instead and began to follow me. However, upon arriving at the barn, changed her mind again and began calling to her big sister. I looked up and her sister was there, so I handed her over the fence. As I began to feed the horses, I heard my bossy toddler daughter yelling, “GO AWAY,” repeatedly to her big sister. As I emerged from the barn, I found the toddler in the equipment barn playing in an open bag of treated soybeans, alone.

The child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, FAS, deals with ongoing processing inconsistencies that can affect every aspect of daily living. While those of us parenting FAS children understand the inconsistencies of behavior, that does not seem to lessen the frustrations that come with every day living. Our 15-year-old FAS daughter is really struggling with everyday functioning. I try to give her jobs to help around the house that will not end up causing me more work once she is finished. I have been repainting all the rooms in our house over the last few weeks, in between homeschooling, blogging, cooking meals, and laundry. I asked my daughter with FAS to try to wash the crayon and marker off from her bedroom door and the side of her closet. Well, I should have checked when I noticed that she had been sitting in the same spot for over an hour, but I was busy painting a nearby wall. When I finally checked it was too late, I should have realized the fixation sooner.