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January 2009

This Christmas found lots of snow at my parents and very little here. Due to the snow they were not able to make it over for Christmas. They did make it out for Thanksgiving. One thing they learned - never let me figure out how long the roast will take. Turned out well but we ate a tad later than planned. Justin and Papa have also started a pie baking tradition.

The holidays were fun around here - as it often is with a child in the house. Justin had 2 weeks off of school and Frank took 3. Santa's main present was a Wii system and the house has had the theme song to MarioKart playing day in and day out. I swear I am hearing it in my sleep. Justin enjoys being the "expert" on a subject and trying to teach us.

As many of you know, over the past 4 years we have had a variety of evaluations done with Justin to see how best to understand and help him with his “developmentally delayed” issues.  Year after year, he has totally disproved each diagnosis.  The one and only thing that has been a consistent possibility was ADHD.  So after not finding ties to foods, etc., we decided, as scary as the idea was, we owed it to him to try medication.  The results for 2nd grade have been amazing.  The teachers that knew him before are astounded with the difference.  We had his 1st trimester report and annual IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting just before Thanksgiving.  Both of us walked out that meeting busting with pride for him and the hard work he is doing.  We (including his teachers and aides) have always known he had more in him than he was showing and now he is proving it.

I am putting together a bunch of pages with some older pictures on them. They will appear over time so check back for those if you are interested. I am also now saving the past home pages. The link to those is at the top of the page with the other links. These too will be added over a period of time.

Peace ...

~Cristi (on behalf of the Rivero clan)

p.s. thanks for the editing Mom - I should learn to run spell check <grin>