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Update on MJ Larsen:
MJ continues to improve despite her continued muscle strength limitations.
She is getting around very well in her walker and tries really hard to
move on the carpet. However, the slick kitchen floor seems to work the
best for her. She is learning trouble-shooting by getting out of difficult
places where she is stuck, able to turn around and keep going. Sometimes
she either forgets she can get out of a situation where she is stuck or
she just likes to yell at her parents. It is so much fun to see her move
on her own and we know she really enjoys it too. We take her walker to
church with us since they have a huge facility. The basketball court has
a nice soft but not too slick of a surface so she still have to work to
get around and can go much farther than she can in our little kitchen.
We still believe that she will walk before she will crawl but we still
want her to learn to crawl since it is such a big learning milestone –
especially for language skills.
(If you missed the last newsletter you can find all the old newsletters
at: http://www.thegrubclub.com/story-mjl.htm along with some new pictures.)
MJ is grabbing toys a lot by herself without prompting as to whether
she wants something. She grabs her drink cup by herself and gets a drink,
throwing it where ever it lands when she's done. So cute! Her finger feeding
is better but still much improvement to be made. We are working on choices
so she can assert her independence for what she wants. We have pictures
of several items to she can choose between some mundane like her brush
and a favorite book. It is working well.
 MJ
began her first day of preschool on February 25, just one week after her
3rd birthday. Needless to say, we w
ere kind of anxious about it but Christine stayed for the entire first
class and they really did well with MJ. She still doesn't quite
interact very much with the kids but she is learning how to do much more
activities with her hands after being severely tactile sensitive. She
still does not really like glue or playdough. It is so cute to see her
play and pay attention. Of course, her favorite is story time since her
all time preferred activity is reading books.
MJ continues to be seizure free. Thank God! Her neurologist told
us at our last visit in Seattle in December that should she remain seizure
free for a year, we can discontinue her on anti-seizure meds. We are so
excited.
The next therapy that we have considered for MJ is call Therapeutic
Riding or Hippo Therapy. It is helpful for a lot of types of neurologic
disorders from seizures to MS. A friend of ours was telling us that therapeutic
riding is what got her developmentally delayed daughter to be interested
in walking. This therapy is taught by a very gentle horse who is guided
by a therapist and several assistants to make sure the patient is safe
and for mounting and dismounting the horse. The facilities have specially
trained therapists who know how to handle the horse for the best benefit
of the patient. We have heard good things about it. If the evaluation
goes well, we will start the 6 week training program. The facility we
prefer is about 45 miles out of Missoula so it will be a long Saturday
morning/afternoon for us for a while. Complete worth it if MJ likes
the horse and does well.
We have
also considered taking MJ to an extensive session of Cranio-Sacral
therapy at their headquarters in Florida. Since we see how much this therapy
works for her an hour each week, we know that two weeks of this intensive
therapy will change her world. We will be able to afford this intensive
session ($7200) and also travel expenses with the help of our website
idea which is described in the next paragraph.
At this point, in order to continue offering as much help to MJ
as we can for her continued development, we have come up with a web site
idea. We are taking this approach:
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish;
and you have fed him for a lifetime”—Author unknown
Obtaining large donations with one major fundraiser would help a lot.
However, improving our income will help MJ over the long term when
her needs are not so obvious such as education, etc. So we have started
a web site at www.TheGrubClub™.com. It provides free online menus for restaurants.
This is how it works: When a restaurant puts up a menu, everyone on the
Internet can view it. This will help the restaurant get new customers
and keep their existing ones as well as help weary travelers find a place
to eat with the cuisine they like while in a particular town. When there
are enough online menus, we will be able to sell advertising. The advertising
dollars will be the funding venue for MJ. That is our plan and we
like it. If you get a chance, look it up and let anyone you know about
it, especially individuals with a restaurant. Word of mouth is the key.
If you are looking for other ways to help, please see our “volunteers”
section of the website or we have also listed them here for convenience:
- Pray for MJ's continued development, good health and complete
healing.
- Tell any restaurant owner or employee you know about our free service.
- Tell friends and family about The Grub Club™.
- Add a tag line in your signature like:
Sincerely,
Your Name
Supporting The Grub Club™ - Free Restaurant Menus Online. www.thegrubclub.com
- If you send out jokes put a similar line just before the joke so that
everyone will see it. Hopefully anyone that forwards it on will leave
the line in so that thousands of people will see it.
- Request some business cards from us and give them out when you go out
to eat. Just leave the card with your tip or ask your waiter to give it
to the manager.
- If you post any info or comments in online forums put a link to www.thegrubclub.com
and a comment about Free Restaurant Menus Online.
- Make a cash donation. Make Checks to: "MJ Larson" and
mail them to: Rich Larson, PO Box 3285, Missoula, MT 59806
- Donate airplane tickets or air miles for a ticket. Airlines flying to
Missoula are BigSky, Delta, Horizon Air, Northwest Airlines, SkyWest and
United.
- Go to www.thegrubclub.com and try it out. Let us know if you have any
ideas on how to improve it or market it with little or no cash.
For those who want to get more active to help MJ:
- Call or mail a post card to restaurants in your area and let them about
our service. We can provide post cards if you would like to do this.
- You could also offer to put the menu online for them. Just have them
mail or preferably e-mail the menu along with a contact info plus a username
and password. Then you can put the info online for them and get the process
going sooner.
- Post info about the Grub Club™ in Blogs and usergroups on the Internet.
- E-mail your friends about The Grub Club™.
- Contact your local paper and see if they can put an article or information
in their paper.
- Contact PR Firms to find a volunteer who knows how to get published
in newspapers and magazines.
- Contact Restaurant Suppliers - let them know that we can provide them
with the ability to use our system to supply their customers with free
online menus.
If you have any other ideas, please let us know. . . . and thanks!
Once again, thanks to all of you for your support, prayers and help.
God bless you.
Rich and Christine Larson
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