Garage Sale Extravaganza!

So, we have decided to really give ABM therapy a serious go.  The good news is that we have already seen tremendous growth from it.  It is not a miraculous big change.  Parker is not walking or sitting up..yet.  But what I see, although small, is still amazing!  Number one - he is so much more happy than he has ever been.  He is content to be on the floor.  In fact, he prefers to be crawling (military style) rather than sitting or even being held!  He is noticing things so much more.  In fact, he is looking at things like he is seeing them for the first time.  He is interacting more with his brothers.  He is eating better.  And he is sleeping better!  I attribute all of these things to ABM and our wonderful local practitioner, Joanna.

However, she has recommended that we go to San Rafael, which I will call the mecca of ABM, and get some lessons from practitioners down there. And so we will.   I am excited and nervous both at the same time.  I am excited to see Anat and others work with Parker.  I am excited to see how he responds.  I am excited to spend some much needed time with my mom on this road trip.  BUT, I am nervous about leaving my other 2 boys for a week!  I am nervous about the logistics of how Parker will handle a 10 hour car drive and how he will sleep while there.  We are trying to save money by staying in a guest cottage at someone's house. It is just a studio, so I am not sure how the sleeping arrangements will go.  I am also nervous about which car we are taking on the drive.  I need to leave the Pilot here for Jimmy because it has 3 carseats in it and he will have both Brady and Ryder.  The Jetta just has one car seat which is all we need, but it is very small and old.  I worry about its reliability. 

Now the big worry is money.  This therapy is not covered by insurance, which is ridiculous!  I am sure it will be at some point - but not for a long time.  And it is expensive.  $200-$500/hour depending on the practitioner.  We are looking at about $2500 for a week of lessons and that doesn't include all of the travel costs!  That hurts.

So, my whole point of this post is that we are doing a fundraiser!  I am not as talented as my friend Shasta, who has written this amazing book to raise funds for Malachi's ABM.  You should totally check out her kickstarter page!  But I can do a garage sale!  So Jimmy and I were just going to do a normal sale of the stuff we have in our garage and baby items that Ryder is done with.

However, I was explaining what we were doing to a friend at work and he said that he had some stuff he would donate to our garage sale.  Then he suggested asking others at work if they had a "Good Will pile" that we could take it for our garage sale.  So we did just that.  And the results were overwhelming!  Our garage is packed full and we still have more stuff to get from people.  With each new call and email from someone, my heart melts a little more.  We are getting calls from people we don't even know because the people we do know are passing on our information.  We have everything from a ping-pong table to a huge freezer to a battery-powered mustang for little kids!  It is great!  This is going to be the biggest garage sale ever!

I don't even know what to say except, thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Thank you to the staff at my and my husband's schools.  Thank you to dear friends.  Thank you

So we are going to have this amazingly huge garage sale next weekend.  My goal is to raise $2000, which I know is a lot for a garage sale.  But I feel confident we could do it.  That would almost pay for one of our two expensive ABM trips for this summer.

Now if everyone can just say a little prayer that it won't rain...