Last night I sat down and wrote out a thoughtful post outlining some of the sensory processing difficulties and primary symptoms of FASD that make it especially challenging for our daughter to do things, like attend a church service. In the midst of my writing, I was distracted by our little Tornado and had to pause and tend to her needs. When I came back to it, my writing had vanished - good ole’ electronics. My brain isn’t working well enough to re-write the entire post - I’m too tired, so I’ll just leave you here with the best part of the story... I was so incredibly proud last Sunday when Tiva went up to communion with her Grandma and was awaiting her blessing from the pastor. She had her hands folded in humble prayer and I was beaming with pride. The pastor offered my mom the cup of wine and as she was drinking, my girl, with her sweetly folded little hands started pecking at our pastors robe with her nose, like some sort of chicken. She pecked our pastor until she could no longer reach him with her pecker nose. I hung my head, asked God for forgiveness and promised we’d keep working on it.
I’m pretty sure God still loves that little pecker and all of her quirks. She certainly keeps us humble and on our knees in daily prayer.
Edited to add the FASD vocabulary word of the day:
DYSMATURITY - (Also known as developmental immaturity) is a classic symptom of damage to the brain caused by prenatal alcohol exposure or FASD.
Dysmaturity is the developmental gap between a persons chronigical age and developmental age in different domains (life skills, expressive language, social skills, emotional maturity, etc).
Used in a sentence: Tiva displayed her social dysmaturity and impulsivity, both common symptoms for those living with FASD by acting like a chicken and pecking the pastor during communion.