Been Awhile...

Hey Ladies. Looks like we're all resurfacing after a long summer. It's nice to hear from you again! Since I last posted my family has relocated to Atlanta, gotten settled, and started school. Overall we've had great experiences here and can't complain. Unfortunately the Early Intervention program here in GA is lacking. We had a discussion about this I think back in June. R is only allowed one therapist at a time, they evaluate her and decide her "primary need" and that is the therapy we receive. We can request for supplemental therapy if she qualifies for other services, but it will all need to be paid out of pocket and even then they will only provide it once a month.

Right now R's 'primary need' is Physical Therapy and her therapy will begin next Wednesday (yes, it's taken over 3 months to get services started here). Since June and until her reassessment in January I am doing all her Speech Therapy. I'm grateful J had such extensive therapy because I feel (somewhat) confident, but I won't lie... I'm completely overwhelmed and scared I'm going to miss something. I'm also punting as the Occupational Therapist and Dietician... and nurse. Totally different and somewhat scary not feeling like you have a legion of people looking out for you and your child. I'm sure our PT will be great, but, I'm sure you understand the panic that comes with making sure your child is getting everything they need.

Remember back in the spring when I said J "finally caught up?" Well, yaah, she did, and then she entered 1st grade. Ha. It's proving to be much harder on my cute J this year. Her brain damage affected the processing ability, which we already knew, but it's rearing it's ugly head as the concepts are getting harder and harder (math..reading...). They have her on the "Rescue Intervention Team" at school. She meets with a reading tutor once a day, has after school tutoring with her teacher once a week, and I do 45-60 minutes of remedial work with her at home each night. It's exhausting but I'm hoping it will help! The RIT team will be watching her for another 4-6 weeks if there isn't any progression, even with the increase in help, they will do more language development tests to see if they can nail exactly what part of the processing is tripping her up (dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, dyscalculia, etc)...and then write up a specific IEP. I feel confident and grateful for the charter school we chose to put J in. Her Elementary school only handles K-3 and they have an Early Intervention Specialist for each grade specifically. I'm working closely with the teacher in hopes to reinforce what she's learning in class.

Sooo things here are going well, just a little overwhelming. But what part of that is new with us and our cute kids huh? I guess my main concern about J -and maybe y'all can give me some suggestions- she's getting to the age where you KNOW you're not doing the same thing as your peers in your class. It takes her twice as long to do an assignment, she's singled out for tutoring, etc. I don't want her confidence to be affected. I can't control the way other kids react or treat her, but I can help her channel her confidence. Any thoughts?