“Mommy, my left foot hurts. ”

My favorite month of the year is October. Not surprisingly, my favorite season of the year is Autumn.

If I had to pick my least favorite month, it would have to be August.

Why?

Because it's too hot for me.

That's why.

Well, that's half of it.

August always seems to shake up my mojo a lot.

My schedule goes all off and different.

My rhythms change.

Right now, we're in the throws of lazy days of summertime.

Don't get me wrong. I do love that.

But often, I find myself a little unsettled when I'm away on holiday.

Like I need to DO something more. I need to be producing. Going somewhere. Brainstorming. Taking action. Doing more in my 'usual' schedule.

August is much needed though because it gives me a time to release my need to control. To let go.

Letting go of my schedule and structure around work activities, being in the practice, posting more blog entries, recording my podcast.

I know that's good for me.

Taking time off, spending time with my family, my husband, and my children (as crazy as those moments are) is what is essential to balancing the Yin to my Yang.

(Or is it my Yang to my Yin?)

We rented a house near the beach in Normandy for ten days.

The stress-factor was on medium low, which was a first, because all my kids now know how to swim, and also, Normandy beaches have calm waves with the tide that goes out for what seems to be miles. So you'd need to try really hard to drown.

We also had friends who were on holiday at the same time, and their kids and our kids played really well, so they entertained one another.

Then early on in the trip, after a looooong day on the beach playing, swimming, running on the sand, etc, my son hobbles over to me like an old man,

"Mommy, my foot really hurts."

So, as I always do when my kid complains about an injury or a mysterious pain in their body, I did the usual thing I do. I asked the necessary questions to diagnose the situation and to assess the level of fatality and cripple-status.

(A mere papercut is near fatal with my kids.)

In my family, because they know have the letters "Dr" in front of my name and I'm qualified to assess their body (simply because I'm their mother), everyone thinks I'm magical.

Actually, all kids think their moms are magical. Right?

Anyway, they seem to think I'm able to swish and flick their woes away. Poof!

My son, who loves to complain all the time about his injuries and bodily ailments as if he was 90 years old, acts like his foot is about to fall off and that he can't walk and definitely needs a set of crutches.

"Wait. Just a few minutes ago, you were jumping and running around like you were Usain Bolt."

"Who's Insane Bolt? Isn't that the superhero doggie movie?"

"No. Never mind. What's wrong with your foot."

"It hurts a lot."

"Ok. Lay down."

99.9% of the time when one of my kids complain about their bodies, they get a cynical and unconvinced response from me. Like, please, it's nothing more serious than a papercut.

Usually when they stick out their finger, and it really actually is a papercut, I roll my eyes and tell them,

"You are definitely going to live. Your body heals itself. And you're probably going to forget about this cut in an hour."

The one message that is consistent to them is, "Your body heals itself."

Do I think that's sinking in? Um, no. That's why I tell it to them ALL THE DAMN TIME.

It'll sink in eventually.

So I tell Max to lay down so I can adjust him.

I'm doing my thing, feeling his spine for tension, moving his foot and leg to see if anything is broken, bleeding, or badly injured.

Of course it's all fine.

He just ran around the beach like a chicken with its head cut off.

For HOURS.

Literally all freakin' day.

It's no wonder why his foot hurts.

After assessing his entire body and gave him a thorough look over and then adjusted every part of his body (just to ease his mind), I decided that he just pulled a little muscle in his foot.

You know when you overwork a muscle in your body and then it's achy when you move it after sitting quietly for a while? Then once you've moved around for a few minutes getting the blood flow it starts to feel better?

That's what happened for the rest of the week with my son's foot.

He complained about it all week.

And I adjusted his spine and foot nearly twice a day.

Every day.

And each day it got better and better.

We also ended up learning this fun game from our friends about complaining during the day.

They created this rule, this game where no one in the family is allowed to complain about injuries or body discomforts until after dinner.

It's called "Injury O'Clock".

They even bought these bongo drums to play a tune before they blurt out all their complaints of the day.

Each day after dinner, it's Injury O'Clock. They each take turns to take the bongos, bang bang bang on them, then vomit out their whiney complaints. And their woes are acknowledged, everyone hears them, and they feel comforted and validated.

Injury heals and goes away.

So, we've started doing that in our family (we don't have bongos though), and so far it seems to be a fun thing to do.

As for me and my husband, the highlight of the trip, apart from soaking up a lot of sun giving us beautiful tans, we raided the supermarkets for wine and bubbly alcoholic drinks.

If you ever go to Normandy by car, it's great fun stock-piling as much wine as possible in your trunk to bring back home.

Now we have a fantastic huge collection of French wine to drink for months!

Now that we have all these cases, and we're back home, it's still August, and it's still crazy. The kids are starting to miss their friends, and they also still want to do summertime activities (read: TV and iPadding).

The good thing is that I can continue sampling our new wine.

Even better, my son's foot is all healed. No more hobbling like a 90 year old man. Plus, no one else got hurt, like last summer.

And with our new Injury O'Clock every evening, complaints are contained and at their lowest.

Now I can write and blog while sipping my French wine. Hurray!

And I can get back to adjusting (not while sipping my wine).

Four Dozen Cases of Wine