Taking Hannah to Georgia

I haven't updated the blog in so long that I feel like I need to fill in some blanks. Throughout the summer, Steven and I have been tossing around the idea of taking Hannah to Georgia Brain Balance Center in Peachtree City because they are set up to teach more severe children one on one...Golden is still a fairly new center and are focusing on more high-functioning children at present. At the beginning of the summer we were not willing to split up the family because of the strain it would have on our marriage, our children, among other things such as finances, etc because the program is a 6-9 month program. As we continued to do the exercises that Golden gave us to do for Hannah we increasingly were feeling alone and discouraged. I called BB in GA back in July just to get more information about their Pre-Brain Balance program (for the severe kids who need one-on-one and are not ready for BB). I was encouraged and hopeful that they would be able to help Hannah. Since then we have been going through all sorts of emotions as we started to contemplate the costs and the details of maintaining two households and selling our house and getting rid of things we don't need, and even what to do with the cat because cats are difficult to move(I know some of you are wondering why even think about the cat but we love him).

August 18th, we took Hannah to get her initial assessment with the Pre-Brain Balance team in Peachtree City, GA. She gave them hell to say the least. She hasn't acted so bad in such a long time. I wonder if she knows or senses more than we think she does. Anyway, they were able to assess her. She is definitely right-brain deficient and is operating at an overall level of about a 1-year-old. Our goal with their help is to get her right hemisphere in balance with her left. She still has all her primitive reflexes so we still have to work on those exercises. Unfortunately, we discovered that we were doing some of the exercises wrong so we will have to correct that. She cannot watch any tv among other restrictions because some of the activities she is so attracted to stimulate the left hemisphere and we need to focus on stimulating the right in order to bring it in balance with the left before she can really progress. BB gave us lots of specific instructions and activities that we have to do with her between now and the time we go down there. I thought I might come home refreshed from this trip but I am overwhelmed. Trying to just think about what we need to do today and writing things down as I think about them.

We have decided that Lord willing the girls and I will move to Peachtree City in March and Steven will stay here with Garrett as he has to work and Garrett is in highschool now. With this decision comes a domino-effect of things that have to be taken care of before we leave. We have to get ready to hopefully lease-purchase our house because we would lose too much money if we sold it. We have to find housing down there. Steven and Garrett will hopefully be able to move closer to Garrett's school to make things a little easier on both of them. We have to do all the things that the BB has instructed us to do in the meantime because getting Hannah that much ahead could prevent us from having to stay there so long. We have to have a baby (yes, we're crazy!!) We have to come up with the money to pay for BB. We think we have about one-third of the money so far, but we are considering some fundraisers. We have to find some help for me down there because the program is only 3 hours/week and then we have a home-program that covers the rest which falls on me.