For the whole background on DD9 read this:

http://www.scarymommy.com/message-board/index.php?p=/discussion/11991/anyone-familiar-with-reactive-attachment-disorder#Item_11

Okay so in summary, DD9 has some form of an attachment disorder resulting from her bio father kidnapping her when she was 2 and hiding her away for a year.  She suffers the effects of early trauma and too much to put into this post.

The general idea you need to know is that part of her disorder results in lots and lots of lying and stealing.  Lying about whether or not she brushed her teeth, cleaned her room, etc., stealing food items, other people's belongings, weird things you would not expect a kid to take (like a handful of q-tips that were then shoved under a cabinet in the bathroom, for example, or dumping out someone's hair product, makeup, whatever).  Destructive sometimes.

Food has been a big issue, and we try hard not to make it one but basically she has to be supervised allllll the time and when she's not, in the past, it ends up bad.   Now I've been thinking about it and I realized that there haven't been any major "food incidents" OR any incidents of "messing" with stuff in a long while, long for her.  Last time she did something food related was DS20's 20th birthday in March.  I baked him a cake and it was cooling on a rack in the kitchen.  She knew it was for after dinner.  She went into the kitchen to do a chore (gather the recycling to go out) and we were not right there and while she was in there she dug a big ugly trench in the cake layers with her finger.  :( 

Well last night we bought some bakery muffins and had them in a big gallon ziploc due to the ants.  Went in the kitchen and found one muffin out, upside down on the counter, with a bite out of it.  Immediately we called her in to ask her what she knew about it.  She swore she had nothing to do with it.  DW didn't say "I know you did" but just told her to go back to her room and that we'd discuss it further.  At first glance, this had DD written all over it but thankfully we didn't at that moment tell her anything one way or another.

Upon closer inspection, it appears that the cat has a thing for muffins because there were definite teeth/claw marks on the ziploc bag and when we looked close at the muffin it had little "cat bites" and not a "human" bite.  This same cat has ruined bread loaves before by tearing open the bag.  So yeah, it was the cat.

Here's the big deal though:  no punishment, no declaration that she'd done it (often when we KNOW for sure we don't even bother asking her to give her a chance to lie)... just being questioned, and she was in her room, crying.  Crying!  I've seen enough of the crocodile tears over the years and the crying because she's been caught (and for only that reason) and this was different.   We went to talk to her and asked why she was crying and she said "Because you will be mad at me but I didn't do anything!"   And she was clearly upset, not because of any punishment she thought she might get.  I don't know, somehow it seemed like she was upset *because she knows we don't trust her*. And the more we talked to her the more this seemed to be what was upsetting her.  NOT that we might take away TV or not give her any muffins.  But that she knows we thought of her first and assumed she was to blame because of the 100s of times that has been the case in the past. 

Now this is very sad but it's also really the first time she has seemed to care about THAT, vs. caring about losing privileges or whatever and crying for the wrong reasons, you know?

We had a talk about how trust takes time to earn and it is easy to lose and how her choices will help us trust her so that one day hopefully we will automatically blame the cat, and she seemed to understand that.  But this was just kind of a wow moment.  I don't want to put too much meaning into it but it still gives me a spark of hope about her ability to connect and understand the value of trust and be empathetic and have a more developed conscience.  In the past she's just kind of been like "whatever" in response, until she loses something she likes, then she is crying but pissed. 

I still don't know how to put it but she *seems* more like a six or seven year old than a 9 year old, but only emotionally, not with regard to physical development and school stuff so much, and she's seemed a couple years off ever since that bastard stole her away. 

So it almost seems like maybe she isn't as emotionally "stuck" as we'd thought but is just progressing like a younger child?  I know a lot of kids with attachment disorder and related problems seem to get "stuck" emotionally.  But maybe she is just *behind* emotionally. I don't know if that is making sense.  We really do need a pro to run this stuff by.

Anyway it all got me to thinking and realizing that I don't remember any big incidents (food related) since March.  maybe I am remembering wrong, but DW things it's been that long too, which is a big deal.  She's really never gone a month before without *something* major.

Sorry so long, just wanted to bounce this out there as I mull it all over.