I asked my teenage daughter to help me clean for my son’s open house last weekend. She seemed excited to help and went right to work, sweeping off the steps and the sidewalk. An hour later, when I checked on her, she was still sweeping the four steps and the 15 feet of sidewalk. That’s when I realized that she wasn’t just using a broom; she was also using a toothbrush.

She was meticulously removing every speck of dirt and each loose stone. The problem being that the cement has been here for at least as long as we have lived here, 15 years.
Therefore, quite a bit of it was loose so she was creating pits, valleys, and holes everywhere. I told her that I appreciated her efforts, she had done the job as well as I needed it done, and she needed to stop.

Of course, she immediately wanted another assignment. The positive here was that she wanted to help and she was trying to do her best. Not only that, but keeping her focused on cleaning was keeping her out of mischief, so that I could continue to prepare the food.

I asked her to finish unloading the dishwasher for me, only the cups still needed to be put away. She rushed over to the cupboard and began to put the cups away, or so I thought. I soon realized that she was now organizing the cup cupboard. She was removing all of the cups and sorting them.

That’s when I had to tell her that it was getting late and I still needed to load the dishwasher and run it. I needed the baby’s bottles to be washed so I could prepare them for the next day. “Please just put the cups away for now,” I begged, “we don’t have time to clean out the cupboards tonight.” She was able to accomplish just putting them away, though it did seem to annoy her and hurt her feelings.

The next day she washed the walls in the kitchen for me, she spent about 20 minutes on a one square foot area. Again, she needed to be reminded that our goal was to finish the task, while leaving the paint intact. After a few more reminders to dip the sponge, she ended up doing a great job.

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I Forgot - Living with FAS/FAE