I've gone nuts over a juice!!!

Anyone reading what I'm about to write about might think I've lost my mind. And, you'd be right, to a point. I have lost my mind about something I've been drinking for the past 10 days.

 

I've written here about my recent knee surgery, and how I can't sleep through the night without waking up at least 8 times a night and sometimes more. I haven't written about the tendonitis in my left elbow that is so painful on some days that I literally have not used that arm to do much. I haven't written about the fact that I have gastric reflux and am on a medication that costs $100 a month for it. I haven't written about how every single morning of my life I wake up with a headache, and how I'm so stiff and sore when I wake up in the morning that it hurts to get up out of  my bed.

 

The very first thing I do when I come downstairs in the morning is reach for the coffee pot and my bottle of Advil. I take 4 Advil (800 mg) three times a day every day. I've been doing this for so long I can't even remember when it started. My mother has arthritis, her sister has severe arthritis, and I just figured that it was something that I was just going to have to live with and that was the end of it.

 

Ten days ago, my daughter, Sarah Kate, told me about a juice that her mother-in-law was drinking. She was drinking 1 ounce in the morning and 1 ounce in the evening. After a week, she had remarkable improvement in joint pain. I was skeptical. I asked her what it was. She told me it was a juice that had Acai berry in it. Well, I'd never heard of the Acai berry. So, I looked it up of course. I figured it couldn't hurt to try it and so I got a bottle of it. Within 3 days of drinking 1 oz in the AM and 1 oz. in the PM I was sleeping all night long. On the 4th day I realized that my left elbow was absolutely pain free, and my knee that had been operated on was 95% better and my other knee (which always hurts) didn't have any pain at all. I was amazed! About the same time, it dawned on me that I had not reached for the Advil bottle that day (or any day since)! People, this is major!!!! I'm a nurse, I know it's not good to live on Advil the way I was, but I had to function and the only way to do that was to take the Advil! I also realized that I had not taken my Protonix in a couple of days. I hadn't taken it because I didn't have the heartburn to remind me to take it! I personally know of some amazing results that people I KNOW have experienced in a matter of days. I can't say enough how amazing this stuff is!

 

When I started drinking this juice, my husband laughed at me. He is forever the doubting Thomas. On Saturday afternoon he asked for a drink of my juice. I reluctantly (read selfishly) gave him an ounce of my now thought of "liquid gold". He has been drinking  1oz two times a day since Saturday. Yesterday afternoon he called me on the phone from work. This is what he said, "I wasn't going to tell you this but I can't help it; my shoulder (he's had a rotator cuff injury for 12 years) doesn't hurt at all! And, my toe (which has hurt him for at least 5 years) doesn't hurt at all". I laughed so hard!!! For him to admit that to me was nothing short of a miracle!

 

On top of the pain relief and gastric reflux relief that I've experienced, my energy level is at a point that I don't think I felt even when I was 21 years old.  This stuff is simply amazing. It's so amazing that I am now selling it (The product is MonaVie, and it's the Acai berry combined with 18 other fruits that are super concentrated in antioxidants). I'm not telling this here in an effort to sell bottles. I'm telling it here because to not tell others what I've experienced while taking this juice would be selfish. If you want some fine, leave a comment and I'll email you my website where you can buy some. I will not post it in this entry because I truly mean it when I say that I'm not telling this here to drum up business. This journal has been about what is going on in my life. This is a huge development in my life and I had to share it here.

It's Official

Austin is now, officially, a second grader. I wish all kids could love school as much as he does. He was so excited to be going back to school. He didn't even mind the obligatory back to school pictures that Mom makes him pose for. Just for the record, I didn't pick out his new shoes. HE DID! I wanted white, he wouldn't hear of it. I remember when Emily and Sarah were little, they were easy to buy shoes for - we agreed! Patrick on the other hand, always wanted the opposite of what I wanted him to have. Must be boys.

Anyway, I drove him to school and walked him to his new classroom. His teacher this year is the daughter-in-law of a good friend of ours. She told me last year that she had heard such good things about him from his teacher that she would do everything in her power to make sure he was in her class this year. She came through and he is thrilled. Before we went to her classroom he had to go get a hug from his first grade teacher, Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown graduated from high school with our youngest daughter, Sarah Kate. He loved her and just wanted to touch base I guess with the very familiar before venturing into the big world of second grade.

We went shopping after he got home yesterday afternoon for the school supplies on the list from school. It was a zoo in the school supplies aisle of every store we went to. We found everything except a simple package of pencil top erasers and 2 dry erase markers. Wouldn't you think that simple pencil erasers would be an easy thing to find? Not so. I bet I end up finding them at the grocery store.

Being the scrapbooking crazed Mom that I am, we had to take a picture of all the supplies spread out on the table for his "back to school page". To further demonstrate how eaten up I am with this scrapbooking thing; I made other purchases at the store where we bought the supplies, but I made sure to pay for them separately so that I could have a separate receipt for the school stuff for the scrapbook page! Even I realize how kind of ridiculous that sounds, but a person's not really crazy if they think they're crazy, right? Well, isn't that right? I don't care, I plead Momitis!

So, school is back in session. All is right with his world.

Grounding 101 (when you have an old Mommy)

I love the goofy face he's making here!

There is not really any particular reason I chose this photo for this entry. I was just looking through some old pictures of Austin and came upon this one. He was 19 months old here and he was helping me plant flowers in the back yard on this day. I remember what a little clown he was that day. I thought he was adorable. I still think he's adorable. He's spoiled rotten. I hasten to add here, however, I didn't do all the spoiling myself. How could he not be spoiled? He's surrounded by adults who have delighted in most every thing he's ever done. There are days (and I never thought I'd ever say this!) when I would give just about anything to have him back at this age. Kids grow up way too fast. It boggles my mind to realize that my older kids are now 26, 24 and 23 years old. How in the world did that happen??? And, my gosh, how can I possibly be old enough to have kids that age? Oh, the tricks our minds play on us. Anyway, Austin will be 8 in October. It simply doesn't seem possible. We are going shopping later this afternoon to buy new school shoes and supplies for the first day of school on Monday. He will be a second grader. Like I said, it boggles the mind.

At the moment we are struggling through his first experience of being grounded. He's always been pretty easy to handle. On the few past occasions that he's been a little on the obstinate side I could simply begin counting to three and before I would get to two he would come out of his obstinant state and do whatever it was that I had asked him to do. I guess he's really starting to grow up now because  night before last (which is probably not the  very first time it's happened, maybe Mommy is just having selective memory) he dug in and asserted his little independant self.

 Patrick and Amber had gone to a cookout at Patrick's friends' house. When they got back here they wanted to finish watching a movie (dvd)  that they had been watching earlier. Austin decided at that exact moment that he wanted to play a game on the Playstation 2 in Patrick's room. I really think that it was more like he wanted to be in the same room as Patrick and Amber. Right before they had gotten home, I had told Austin that it was time for him to take a shower. I told him to come on and get in the shower and let Patrick and Amber watch the movie. This was his first "dig in". He insisted that he only wanted to play the game for a few minutes. I told him, "No, Patrick and Amber want to watch a movie and it's not your room. Come on and get in the shower now." He, of course, was tring to ignore me and keep playing the game. I had to raise my voice a little. He can't handle a raised voice. I wasn't yelling, I really wasn't, but I was aggravated that he was being obstinate. My tone of voice didn't hide the fact that I was aggravated. He stomped out of Patrick's room and went into his room. I once again asked him to get in the shower. (Why do little boys hate to take baths and showers?) By now he was really sulking and  I was tired and aggravated. Usually, at this point all I have to do is tell him to get in the shower and begin counting and by the time I reach two he's up and headed to the shower. NOT THIS TIME! He jumped to the floor on the other side of his bed and really dug in. This is not my first time around the block people. I could see the writing on the wall. This was defiance, plain and simple. He drew the line in the sand and I was forced to be the big, bad Mommy! If he could have heard the thoughts in my head at that moment he would have heard me saying, "Oh, Austin, please don't make me ground you. I don't want to do this, please don't make me do this. Please just be my little obedient Austin and get in the shower". He, however, didn't hear those thoughts. What he heard was, "I am going to count to three and if you're not on the way to the shower by the time I get to three, you're grounded". I don't know, maybe he was thinking it would be cool to be grounded. Maybe he thought that he would be grounded and he wouldn't have to take the shower after all and it would be worth the grounding. But what happened was, I began counting slowly. "One....(no movement)two...Austin, I mean it, I am going to ground you, please don't make me do that. (no movement)...three (still no movement). Then that old familar feeling that parents get after they realize that their bluffs been called set it. What is that thought? It's, "OH my gosh, I've grounded this kid and in the process have punished MYSELF!" So then, he gets up off the floorand stomps to the bathroom for his shower, crying all the way. He wasn't crying because he'd been grounded,m he was crying because I was mad at him. Through his tears he was telling me that I was mean and that I didn't love him and that he doesn't like to be yelled at. I reiterate here that I was not really yelling.Now, here is the thing that I don't understand. Once I reached the magic number of three and he'd become grounded, he got up and walked to the shower! No more arguing! Could someone please explain to my why?

 When he got out of the shower he wanted to know what he was grounded from. Without thinking I told him that he was not allowed to have any kids in to play and he was not allowed to play inside anyone's house for the rest of the week (Sunday). I think at the time I said he was not allowed to play with his friends until Monday. Now here is the thing people, These are the last few days of his summer vacation and I'm off this weekend! In hindsight, I wish I'd said that he would not be allowed to play any video games until Monday. So, now, I'm living with the decision I made. Well, ok, maybe not completely. We both kind of conveniently forgot the part about not playing with his friends at all. But he's not having friends in and he's not going in anyone's house (this is huge, because these kids are constantly playing in someone's house). He's begged me all morning to let him have someone in. I have held strong (stop laughing!). I plead old age. It's expected that we become forgetful as we age, right? Maybe I just think that I said he couldn't play with this friends at all. Yeah, that's it, I just thought it, I didn't really say it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

PS:  Within an hour of posting this entry, Austin came into the house and said, "Mommy, I'm going down to Dylan's house." "Not inside", I said. To which he responded with the following zinger, "I know, I'm just going to be outside. Are you okay with that?" Am I okay with that? I swear this kid is a 30 year old in a 7 year old body.

Home from a wonderful vacation

My  neighbor came through with the buddy passes so Austin and I flew to Panama City a week ago Sunday. Austin was so excited to be flying (he doesn't remember his first flight as a baby).

We mostly just hung out at the pool and totally enjoyed ourselves. I don't know when I've ever had a more relaxing vacation. My nephew took Austin to the beach one afternoon, once was enough, the green algae was bad and the rest of the time he was happy to be in the pool. (Mommy rejoiced!). We were usually in the pool by 8 am and pretty much stayed there until supper time. Pilar had a couple of neighbor kids that came to swim with Austin (he can't do ANYTHING alone!), so Pilar and I were able to sit around the pool talking, working Sudoku puzzles and eating. Even Austin learned how to do Sudoku and he worked on one just about every morning:

By the time we left he was swimming like a fish and we both had swimmer's ear to prove it. (I've never had an earache in my life, Man are they ever painful!) I called his pediatrician and he called in a prescription to the pharmacy down there (to the tune of $102 for 10 cc's! Highway robbery if you ask me!

I've never particularly wanted a pool in my back yard. Well, I do now! It was so wonderful to swim first thing in the morning. It was a blast for Austin and he was worn out by the end of the day. He was easy to get into bed very early (the first day he was asleep by 6pm!). He is at the perfect age for a pool. I don't know what kind, but somehow, someway there will be water in my backyard next summer. At the age Austin is we would get years of enjoyment out of it. I'll be checking out pools this winter!!

Pilar's friends have a 30 ft. cabin cruiser. They took Austin and I out in the Gulf on Friday afternoon (Pilar gets extremely sea sick so she opted out). We were hoping to see some Dolphins. We saw some off in the distance when we were going out through the bay, but on our return trip through the bay, there were some guys in a boat feeding them little fish (this is against the law), anyway, they had about 7 of them surrounding their boat. They were coming up out of the water like Flipper used to do, begging for food. Then, one by one, the guys starting jumping in the water to swim with them (we were in about 15 ft of the clearest water I've ever seen in my life), When the Dolphins saw our boat they came over to us to beg for food. We didn't feed them but they were right up next to the boat! I wanted to jump in with them so badly. If my knee had been 100% I would have done it in a heartbeat, but Kathy said it would have been too hard to get back in the boat with my knee because of the waves. It killed me to be so close to them, an opportunity I've always wanted, and have to pass it up. Before I die, I WILL swim with Dolphins. They were so friendly! It was awesome!

Steve put out some lines in the water and Austin was trying to pull in a 2 footer. Not sure what it was, but right before he got it in the boat, he let go of the bait. It was still exciting!

We got home on Sunday afternoon at 2:00. We were so worn out and slap happy by the time we were headed home that Austin was taking pictures of us on the plane.(The chlorine has taken out all the color from my hair, so here people, is the ugly truth: This is now the natural color of my hair! Scary!) He kept telling me to make faces as he snapped pictures:

I thought for sure that Austin's two fron teeth would have fallen out by the time we came home. But, NO! He protects them all the time! They are just dangling!!

Even Austin's bear, Max enjoyed the trip:

 

I still have more pictures to download, so I'll post some more soon.

It's back to work tomorrow! I miss work. I'm glad to be going back. My knee is not great, but I worked on it for about a month before the surgery when ithurt, so I can work on it now. The jury is still out on how successful this surgery was. The doctor said it would take 8 weeks for it to be perfect. Patrick is at about the 8 week mark now and his isn't perfect. I havemy doubts. I'm not ready to say that I'm glad I had it done. I hope in another month I can say that it was a complete success. In the meantime Iwill keep limping on.