The honeymoon is over!

Wow, I didn't realize it's been almost a month since I posted. We have been very busy with school starting. Then Tropical Storm Issac gave us an unexpected punch. Even though we were under the outer bands of the storm, we had so much rain in such a short amount of time that the area we live in was flooded. We were trapped for only 3 days but the kids missed school for a week because it was not safe for parents to try to drive their kids to school or for the busses to pick them up. They will be heading back to school Tuesday but will have a lot of catch up work to do.
Well you are probably wondering why I titled this post "The Honeymoon is over". Sometimes with adoption the initial weeks/months are the hardest time but sometimes the initial weeks are easier because everything is new and interesting and the child wants to please the new parents. It is referred to as the Honeymoon period. As time goes by the reality sinks in and the child starts acting out. Well, we have hit that point. We are experiencing a stubborn, selfish, jealous, demanding, willful child that wants every minute of attention from us. At the same time we understand that he is grieving his lost life, having conflicting feelings about us and China, and he is afraid. He has also told us about abuse in the orphanage and how they tricked them into agreeing to be adopted. They say that you should determine their emotional age by the amount of time they have been with a family. He was with his family until 5 and another year in the foster home. That is about right, he behaves like a 6 year old in a 12 year old body. Even with all the training we go through to prepare for adoption and knowing we need to have empathy and patience for him, it is so hard when you have a 12 year old taking off from you in a restaurant, hiding under tables, dumping the salt and pepper out and banging on the table for attention! He had another meltdown yesterday because Matthew got to play on my iPad when he was using his nebulizer. Jinbao felt that Matthew should not use MY iPad because it had the games on it that Jinbao downloaded (without permission I should add). Thank goodness grandpa and Andrew were home because between the two of them they were able to get some very important points across to him. We will see if anything got through to him! I am mentioning all this not to complain but just to be honest about what really goes on with adoption. The other night Andrew and I just needed a break from it all and went out to a movie since grandpa was here and the kids were asleep. We chose The Odd Life of Timothy Green not knowing it had an adoption theme to it. Besides bawling my eyes out, I sat there partially feeling guilty for not having more patience, then questioning myself about not setting more boundaries early on so he could bond and adjust, then thinking about how the movie world paints a pretty picture about adoption. It's not reality, I knew this going in because of my experience with Makenna, but many do not. You can read all the books and prepare for the worst but it is so much harder in reality.
Anyway, we did go to Universal and Islands of Adventure for Makenna's birthday. We made the mistake of thinking he would enjoy it, and he did in a way, but I think it was just too overwhelming for him. He really wanted to go on the Rip Roaring Rocket with Andrew and Makenna and this was the result:

He declined going on any of the other big rides with Makenna after that!

Thanks for following! Donna