And the days go by

November 20th, Christmas will be here before we know it. Things seem to be moving at such a fast pace. We have continued to struggle with Sarah, it seems as though her life has just been too stressful for one five year old to sort out. We had counseling session to get things started and our counselor believes that Sarah suffers from an attachment disorder. She mentioned one that I have been looking into because my gut feeling was leading me there. It seems as though our little Sarah is a RAD kid. RAD stands for reactive attachment disorder. It can happen from a child being taken from it's mother at birth and not having her basic needs met in the first two years of life, frequent changes in caregivers can compound the problem. All of which Sarah has had to endure. We are on a long hard road with her, but we are getting her help in time. Kids like Sarah who don't receive attachment therapy before they are 12 years old, tend to have a lot of problems with drugs and violence. Sarah has what the counselor called her "public face" which is the Sarah that is playful and fun loving and at most just seems to be a little hyper active. Then there is reactive Sarah who struggles for control of her surroundings as a form of self defense from her caregiver(s). Sarah has problems with self control and doesn't understand cause and effect, she is also prone to meltdowns like you have never seen before, and can harm herself and others when in meltdown mode. With therapy Sarah will be that fun loving happy girl but it will take work. For those of you who will be around Sarah I encourage you to research RAD, so that you can be part of our support team. In order for Sarah to make progress I need our friends and family to understand something, Sarah is NOT a normal 5 year old. Lying occasionally is something that kids do, Sarah does not lie occasionally she lies almost anytime you ask her a question. What you say and do can effect how she views her parents. If you say "I think you're being to hard on her" within earshot, you could be undoing a lot of counseling. However if you tell her that she is really lucky to have such great parents, that can boost her therapy sucess. It's hard to explain a mental disorder because people can't understand a disorder they see no evidence of, but trust me it isn't a big bowl of peaches.

Our court date to finalize the adoption is December 10th and I am so happy that Sarah will be able to be sealed to us in the temple not long after that. I know that I have complained but I can't thank heavenly father enough for leading our Sarah home to us, so that we can get her well and feel our family is finally whole again.