Blogger is making me crazy since they updated their editor. For some reason it changes how pictures show up on my blog and you cannot move them around with just a click. I have tried with and without the new version and it doesn't seem to matter. So, when you don't have much to blog about it makes it just as easy to walk away.....thus the hiatus!
We are finally back in a routine with the holidays, snowdays and MLK day, Nick has yet to have a full week of school. I have hope for next week but there is snow expected and well, you know what an inch of snow can do....complete devastation, I know!
Nick has had a few bad days because of this lack of routine or just generally being 5 I guess. We have had broken glasses (on purpose), screaming fits a plenty, and even hair pulling and hitting. Now, lest you worry he is having problems at school, no, no, it is only mom that is the hearer and receiver of all that is the "other" Nick. Since he really has come so far and these fits are far and few between, I think I handle them with less patience because it is just so out of nowhere.....I am starting to dislike any change in routine very much.
He has started OT and I just wish his awesome OT's Julie and Ariana could explain all that they are working on with Nick. The best I can describe it is Sensory related....visual integation and motor planning are two buzz words they are using. I look forward to our next meeting with them so they can give me the layman's term for how to explain what they are doing. He is in group therapy. They have found that this age child seems to have success with doing it together with others. It is a group of all boys. Nick is the only adopted child but they all have similar sensory issues. One of the things they are assessing with him is whether or not he still has some of the primal reflexes in place at birth that go away as a child develops. While biological children can have this for sure, they definitely see it in some adopted children because of the lack of sensory, simulating input during the baby years. It is all so interesting to me. I am reading two books that they recommended, the Sensational kid, and Physical Activities for Improving Children's Learning and Behavior (A guide to Sensory Motor Development).
Nick just received his 2nd quarter report card and it was glowing. We are so proud. He has come so far with his writing that I would say he is pretty much on target. Surprisingly but not really, he got some exceeding expectations this time. One area was Phonemic Awareness....rhymes, sound blending, beginning and ending sounds, etc. I have to say that I swear by the leap frog video series, letter factory, word factory, etc. They are the greatest tools to make this kind of learning fun and I think his report card shows that it helped him catch up. In that area specifically, he is already at the end of the year benchmark (expectation). Woo, Hoo for our boy! He is also reading more and more. He even got some exceeding expectations in spanish. I am just so happy with the school and all that it has done to spur Nick on and also give him the awesome chance to be bilingual again.
Since Christmas, he has also discovered thru his new cartridges, more advanced games on the leapster. They keep him mesmerized (batman and star wars) as well as now loving educational computer games on the computer. We have had to start limiting time on these apparati due to his new "love". We are keeping it educational only for as long as possible.....he has plenty of years later to discover the other mindless junk.
Nick is currently into the whole phase of WHY. He questions everything and it is taking every ounce of my patience to get thru a ride to or from school or anywhere else for that matter these days. I love his questions but he is never satisfied with the answer and you can just "hear" the little wheels in his head going, and going, and going.....he has the energizer bunny brain. Sometimes, Pat and I can be heard saying "just stop talking" or "you cannot fully understand that at your age Nick" ....kind of funny but not so when you are in the car for a really long trip!! :)
His latest inquiry that amazed me was him trying to figure out how we can love God first and not toys. Seriously, he went on and on for 30 minutes while we were driving around town trying to explain to me that it was impossible to put God number one in his brain when he loved toys so much and that he didn't want to "kick" God out of his brain but he just loved his toys so much he couldn't "kick" them out. As I tried to explain how we could really enjoy other things alot as long as we put God and our family as our first love, he just continued to argue. I will need to look up several verses for him to have on his wall to look at about the subject but really, he is just 5...why do I have to argue theology at 5? DO they have Kindegarten Seminary too? :)
Speaking of growing up and thinking of "older" things, he and his friend Libby came out of class the other day and declared that they had kissed and that they were getting married when they are 17. And, Libby, announced at home to her parents that not only are they getting married but they are adopting from Mexico! It cracked us up and made us panic all at once. Apparently, Kristina and her husband said the same thing Pat and I did at the dinner table which was, you can't kiss until your are married because there are just too many germs! ha! Also, Libby's dad stipulated that they had skipped the whole process of Nick asking permission from him to have Libby's hand in marriage...and Libby responded...."but why?" Cracks me up! The sweet thing is Nick tells us often that he is going to grow up and be a daddy and adopt and have us over to a "feast". We hear this often and it just melts my heart. Last night at dinner, he told us when we were grandparents to this child he is adopting that he will buy us birthday gifts. Rocking chairs for each of us and Knitting for me. We almost choked on our food. So funny! He did say he would get Knitting for Pat if he wanted it too. So, interesting since neither of his grandparents rock or knit at this point. :)
I just mailed off our third post adoption and last social worker written report. We made our trek to the capitol for the Apostille and took Libby and her mom with us for an outing. They had fun although the glasses breaking incident happened on our journey home. They got a first hand experience with the "other" Nick. Bless their hearts! :) I personally think it was the homemade chocolates that we bought at Rebecca Ruth's candy shop near the Capitol building. Sugar is not our friend some days! We got a few pictures from the outing below....
We are finally back in a routine with the holidays, snowdays and MLK day, Nick has yet to have a full week of school. I have hope for next week but there is snow expected and well, you know what an inch of snow can do....complete devastation, I know!
Nick has had a few bad days because of this lack of routine or just generally being 5 I guess. We have had broken glasses (on purpose), screaming fits a plenty, and even hair pulling and hitting. Now, lest you worry he is having problems at school, no, no, it is only mom that is the hearer and receiver of all that is the "other" Nick. Since he really has come so far and these fits are far and few between, I think I handle them with less patience because it is just so out of nowhere.....I am starting to dislike any change in routine very much.
He has started OT and I just wish his awesome OT's Julie and Ariana could explain all that they are working on with Nick. The best I can describe it is Sensory related....visual integation and motor planning are two buzz words they are using. I look forward to our next meeting with them so they can give me the layman's term for how to explain what they are doing. He is in group therapy. They have found that this age child seems to have success with doing it together with others. It is a group of all boys. Nick is the only adopted child but they all have similar sensory issues. One of the things they are assessing with him is whether or not he still has some of the primal reflexes in place at birth that go away as a child develops. While biological children can have this for sure, they definitely see it in some adopted children because of the lack of sensory, simulating input during the baby years. It is all so interesting to me. I am reading two books that they recommended, the Sensational kid, and Physical Activities for Improving Children's Learning and Behavior (A guide to Sensory Motor Development).
Nick just received his 2nd quarter report card and it was glowing. We are so proud. He has come so far with his writing that I would say he is pretty much on target. Surprisingly but not really, he got some exceeding expectations this time. One area was Phonemic Awareness....rhymes, sound blending, beginning and ending sounds, etc. I have to say that I swear by the leap frog video series, letter factory, word factory, etc. They are the greatest tools to make this kind of learning fun and I think his report card shows that it helped him catch up. In that area specifically, he is already at the end of the year benchmark (expectation). Woo, Hoo for our boy! He is also reading more and more. He even got some exceeding expectations in spanish. I am just so happy with the school and all that it has done to spur Nick on and also give him the awesome chance to be bilingual again.
Since Christmas, he has also discovered thru his new cartridges, more advanced games on the leapster. They keep him mesmerized (batman and star wars) as well as now loving educational computer games on the computer. We have had to start limiting time on these apparati due to his new "love". We are keeping it educational only for as long as possible.....he has plenty of years later to discover the other mindless junk.
Nick is currently into the whole phase of WHY. He questions everything and it is taking every ounce of my patience to get thru a ride to or from school or anywhere else for that matter these days. I love his questions but he is never satisfied with the answer and you can just "hear" the little wheels in his head going, and going, and going.....he has the energizer bunny brain. Sometimes, Pat and I can be heard saying "just stop talking" or "you cannot fully understand that at your age Nick" ....kind of funny but not so when you are in the car for a really long trip!! :)
His latest inquiry that amazed me was him trying to figure out how we can love God first and not toys. Seriously, he went on and on for 30 minutes while we were driving around town trying to explain to me that it was impossible to put God number one in his brain when he loved toys so much and that he didn't want to "kick" God out of his brain but he just loved his toys so much he couldn't "kick" them out. As I tried to explain how we could really enjoy other things alot as long as we put God and our family as our first love, he just continued to argue. I will need to look up several verses for him to have on his wall to look at about the subject but really, he is just 5...why do I have to argue theology at 5? DO they have Kindegarten Seminary too? :)
Speaking of growing up and thinking of "older" things, he and his friend Libby came out of class the other day and declared that they had kissed and that they were getting married when they are 17. And, Libby, announced at home to her parents that not only are they getting married but they are adopting from Mexico! It cracked us up and made us panic all at once. Apparently, Kristina and her husband said the same thing Pat and I did at the dinner table which was, you can't kiss until your are married because there are just too many germs! ha! Also, Libby's dad stipulated that they had skipped the whole process of Nick asking permission from him to have Libby's hand in marriage...and Libby responded...."but why?" Cracks me up! The sweet thing is Nick tells us often that he is going to grow up and be a daddy and adopt and have us over to a "feast". We hear this often and it just melts my heart. Last night at dinner, he told us when we were grandparents to this child he is adopting that he will buy us birthday gifts. Rocking chairs for each of us and Knitting for me. We almost choked on our food. So funny! He did say he would get Knitting for Pat if he wanted it too. So, interesting since neither of his grandparents rock or knit at this point. :)
I just mailed off our third post adoption and last social worker written report. We made our trek to the capitol for the Apostille and took Libby and her mom with us for an outing. They had fun although the glasses breaking incident happened on our journey home. They got a first hand experience with the "other" Nick. Bless their hearts! :) I personally think it was the homemade chocolates that we bought at Rebecca Ruth's candy shop near the Capitol building. Sugar is not our friend some days! We got a few pictures from the outing below....
The crazy blogger won't let me write between the posted pictures so I will talk about Christmas at the end. We had a great time in Wisconsin. There was tons of snow to sled and stomp around in for days. It almost kept a few of the Siblings away but they all being native Wisconsinites made it without much fanfair and panic.....good thing they didn't grow up in Ky. They would have declared a national emergency and called off Christmas! :) Nick had a fabulous time with his cousins and as he followed Dakota (15) everywhere so little Colin (1) followed Nick. It was mutual hero worship all around. Nick was getting a little testy with Colin towards the end of the week (that whole lack of routine and schedule thing) and Colin wanted most anything that Nick had his hands on. Star Wars stuff was everywhere and Colin placed his snack cup on top of one of Nick's prized "boxes" from the star wars vehicles. Nick came in, saw the cup and with much disgust and despair, removed the cup from the top of "his" toy box and declared "COLIN, THERE ARE NOOOO CUPS IN STAR WARS!!!!!!" It was so loud and out of the blue that we all heard him and it took a long time for us all to quit laughing....Colin was stunned and just giggled which he did often when Nick was trying to explain the finer points of "playing" star wars to a one year old. It was classic. I am sure that will be a phrase we bring up at the Kitzman gatherings for years to come.
Well, I am sure there are more updates I need to include but I can't be sure this is even going to post so I am going to stop for now. We have all of our Anniversaries and Nick's birthday coming up in the next 3 months so life and blogging should get a little more exciting....maybe.
Our hearts are so heavy with the Haiti earthquakes....all of the orphans just break our heart as well as the loss of life. Our church is doing several different things as they were already doing mission work in Haiti before so luckily there is already people in country that we can funnel our donations and help to at this tragic time. The one good thing to come out of all this is that many orphans are being approved to finally skip the crazy red tape that has kept many of them from joining their new familis for months and years even. I just get all teary everytime I see the babies coming home to their families in the recent news reports. Always good to see the good that God brings amongst all the tragedy. I read a blog by a family working in Haiti and they remarked the other day how everyone sees the chaos and despair that has really been Haiti for a long time and they wonder who is in charge, and they said that they know exactly who is in charge amidst all this chaos and it is God. Their reports have been so heart wrenching yet so full of hope for these people that you can tell they love with all their hearts. I think I can understand a bit of their hope for these people because once you have lived among a different culture than your own, they become a part of you, that part that affects how you perceive the world. It changes you. You cease to see the government corruption, the bad and the ugly, the differences, you stop playing the blame game and you start to see how God made us all in His image and we are ALL precious to Him and you begin to love them accordingly. We pray for those precious ones that God made in His Image....
