Sarah connected with Mikayla at the pool! It was so good to see them laughing and giggling while swimming. Refreshing fun!! She had another little girl named Julia from church and gymnastic that she played with- why can't they be our neighbors!
Big sisters and their boyfriends work, too!!
It has been challenging hooking Sarah up with other children. She naturally gets along with most kids (actually she does better with adults) but there are only a few that she really seems to connect with- and some of those are not who you would want your impressionable new child to hang out with.
We have lately met up with a few unfortunate situations where another child has encouraged Sarah to lie to us and to disobey our rules. Sarah has been honest with us after the situation but we want her to hopefully begin to see characteristics in others that are good and that are not so good. We are hoping with our guidance she will choose the friends with the admirable characteristics. Let me tell you this is a challenge and it is ongoing and it will not go away- we need to deal with this often and always. We don't want our daughter to choose a friend just because she is available often, conveniently located and is entertaining because she makes poor choices.
It is hard for Sarah to see past "I just want to play, I don't care who it is." She will allow herself to continually be treated poorly. She knows enough to come and tell us and to get comfort and conversation about it from us but when the doorbell rings again she is eager to put herself back in the same situation. It is hard to stand by and see this happen again and again. It is also hard to tell a child you cannot play with another child but the time has come, things are not getting better and we are stepping in now and teaching her to say "No thank you, I don't want to play right now."
Our hope for Sarah is that she will find friends that are worthy of a friendship. That are kind and love to play. I know this sounds controlling and overbearing of me but honestly it is so different with older child adoption. These children have already had tons of kids to play with in the orphanage, they have a pack mentality and can be led astray very easily. As their parents it is up to us to show them right from wrong, good from bad and safe from dangerous- it's a full time job and it can be exhausting! (Just so you know Sarah doesn't go further than 100 ft from our house- so we don't let her go far and we are with her 97% of the time but trouble seems to find the other 3%.) She has met lots of really really nice girls- she just has a hard time deciphering the difference between them and it is the tough ones that cause this Momma to wrestle with the whole friend issue.
