Thoughts on holding a garage sale May 16, 2010

Yesterday I took part in a garage sale at a friend’s house. I helped set up the night before (some work, but also fun to see friends) and arrived bright and early on Saturday morning to get ready for business. Our family made less than ten dollars, but we didn’t have much in the sale and we did get rid of our old, beat up pack & play. Was it worth it to take part in the sale? Hard to say. From a fun/social standpoint, yes. From a time & money standpoint, probably not. From a decluttering standpoint, it’s a toss-up since everything we got rid of could have been donated to the Salvation Army.

Of course, now that the sale is over, I see a number of things that could have been in the sale — sandbox, highchair. On the other hand, we would have needed to haul those items to our friend’s house, and haul them back home if they didn’t sell.

I can see why FlyLady generally advises against having a garage sale. It requires so much work and time and space (space to store things before and after the sale). I feel sad for my friend, Angela, because she had been saving her boy’s clothes and gear and toys for years, in anticipation of having a huge garage sale, and it didn’t turn out that great. We didn’t have as much traffic as we had expected, and the customers we did have didn’t seem to be in need of baby gear. Angela seemed genuinely sad and disappointed about the results of the sale, and I can’t blame her considering all of the time and effort that she put into it. Angela had a nice bouncy seat priced at 3 dollars, and the fact that it didn’t sell tells me that we just didn’t have the right customers. I have seen similar (or not as nice seats) priced at 10 to 15 dollars, so I know price was not an issue.

In the end, all of the people participating in the sale put most of what didn’t sell on the curb with a FREE sign. It’s sort of depressing and it makes me wonder whether it was worth it to have a sale. If the goal is “just to get rid of stuff” and you don’t care how cheaply stuff sells for, then why have a sale in the first place? Why not donate everything to the Salvation Army here in town? The more valuable things, like highchairs and the like, can be sold on Craig’s List, consigned, etc., for much less effort than holding a garage sale.

For the past few years, I personally have been taking my nice baby gear and baby/kid clothes to a local children’s consignment shop. Now, I am more certain than ever that this is the right route for me. The fact that I don’t have to pay for a garage sale ad (which costs about 19 dollars) or even for a share of an ad is a huge advantage, not to mention that it takes very little time, effort, and planning to go the consignment route.

It’s been a long day already, and it’s only just begun May 14, 2010

It’s only 7:30 a.m. in my neck of the woods, but already I feel like I’ve put in a full shift. Mark, age 18 months, woke up at 4 a.m. crying. He settled down when I directed him to his favorite blanket, but he did not go back to sleep. And, it follows, neither did I. So I got dressed at 4:45 a.m. and Hubby helped keep Mark quiet so as not to wake up big brother, Adam, age 4 1/2.

At 5:15 I loaded Mark into the van and we drove around for an hour. I got a coffee and a newspaper (so I could plan garage saling without poking around online so much). By being out of the house, I wanted to ensure that Adam could sleep as late as possible. It is so, so difficult to keep Mark quiet, and our house is fairly small so it’s not really possible to close ourselves off somewhere and wait it out, and Adam seems intent on waking up at at the slightest sound.

So anyway, imagine my surprise when we pulled into the driveway at 6:15 a.m. and I found Adam in the backyard in his pajamas, jacket, and Crocs. I knew right away that Hubby was still in bed and that Adam had gone outside without permission. This is something we have come across before and so I believe that Adam is fully aware of the rules.

Soon afterwards I discovered that Adam had changed out of very wet underwear and pajama bottoms, AND that his bedwetting alarm was switched to OFF. The only logical explanation (and I need to come up with my own explanations because for whatever reason it is essentially impossible to get a coherent explanation out of Adam) is that his alarm woke him up and he then turned it off, went back to sleep, and in the process completely evacuated his bladder into his clothes and bedding.

This all  made for a very crabby mommy. We have been using the bedwetting alarm for 2+ months now, and I understand that at times the alarm might  not wake him up. BUT, if it wakes him up enough for him to switch it off, then I expect him to get up out of bed and take care of business.

Hubby and I decided that as a consequence for Adam’s actions, he will spend the entire day in his room with no toys and no books. I credit John Rosemond for this concept and, while it’s certainly not easy to implement and stick with, it does serve as a compelling consequence.

It strikes me that Adam is nearly five years old, and more and more we need to hold him accountable for his decisions.  In doing so, we need to use consequences that will fully get his attention. It strikes me how ineffective it is to engage in what Rosemond calls “yada-yada discipline” in which the parent uses explanations, talking, etc., as the primary means of trying to get a child to change his/her behavior.