Good Morning from Bavaria

First of all Jess, I am not ignoring you. I need to get a hold of Darla because she inadvertently became administrator for the blog. Darla, if you are at the library today :)do you mind e-mailing Jess and me your password? Jess, because she can add the links and "jazz it up a bit" and me because I'm on a power trip. I thought I had it in my e-mail records and I don't, plus, I think we have to use your e-mail address and password and I don't want to without permission. Maybe we can figure out how to change it permanently.

So the day before yesterday I took Sawyer at 3 1/2 mos. to his two month well baby visit. Yes, I know, but it had to be that way because of our trip home. So he weighs 15lbs. 9oz. He is in the 75% for his head size and his weight and 95% for his height-which I think was just short of 27 in. if I remember right. The Dr. loved him. He was smiling and laughing and cooing and turning on all his gentlemanly charm. He was given the thumbs up in all regards. We then spent the rest of the appointment like we do at all of my children's appts., discussing Ellyn. I asked her what she thought of Ellyn trying out this gluten free casein free diet for a couple of months. She thought it was a great idea with a few amendments-it should not be for two months, but for six, and I should eliminate all preservatives from her diet as well. Choke. At our house that pretty much means that we would be eliminating food from Ellyn's diet. Her doctor told me that one of the german stores where I shop had a good selection of gluten free foods and they had soy yogurt as well. So...I decided that I was not going to do this gradually because I would never get around to doing it all the way. I was going to jump in feet first. First, I went to the commissary while Ellyn was at school and spent an hour and a half putting together about 5 meals. Things I have learned- Campbell's tomato soup and all canned tomato soups available at our commissary, have wheat in them. Vinegar is made from wheat- I had never thought of the origin of vinegar. All candy is full of the most amazing amount of crap AND licorice has wheat in it. I always thought Twizzlers was made from plastic. Sherbet, which I thought was flavored ice, has milk in it. So Tuesday night I was expecting phone calls from Mike so I couldn't get to the REAL (the german store) so I was looking on line to see what kind of foods were available and thought how terrible it was going to be if I had to order everything. But...I went to the REAL yesterday and it was like a ray of light shining down from Heaven. I asked the stocker in one of my three german phrases that I know if she spoke English. She did not, but I had looked up how to say gluten in german. Guess what, it's gluten. I had a feeling, gluten had that german feel to it. I already knew how to say free, frei. The girl walked me over to the section and that is when the ray of light thing happened. Jane was incredibly relieved to find several bags of pasta in my shopping bag. That was the one thing she was most concerned about. So now I am sitting here beside my daughter who is eating a breakfast of soy milk on corn puffed chocolate cereal, with a banana. I might mention that this could really assist me in my weight loss endeavor as I passed my favorite italian pizza stand, with the real italian pizza man that makes pizza better than almost anything I had in Italy, the Donner Kabob stand which are like gyros but from Turkey, and the bakery with their rows of beautiful pretzels. It was torture. Luckily Ellyn only eats a very limited variety of foods anyway so IF I can find some staples this shouldn't be too terrible. I just have to be careful with the whole mindless eating thing, fast food-which we only really do when we are traveling. It's going to take some planning and some more from scratch cooking (I found some scrumptious looking tomato soup recipes- I didn't know people could actually make tomato soup) but it shouldn't be terrible. No, the whole family is not going on the diet. A loaf of bread is $5.98. Yikes. Luckily, during the week, Ellyn eats her breakfast and her lunch with just me. They also have gluten free pretzels and Ellyn loves mixed nuts and fruit so I should have some good snacks for her. Wish me luck.

Well, that is all for now. I have to go shampoo my carpets. They were clean enough until I want to lay the little man down on them, then, not so much. I love you all.