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Had a quiet moment after bedtime while Nick prepares for worship team in the morning, so I thought I'd write.

Audrey is amazing us with her improvement already. It is obvious this is something she's been needing. She happily sat at the dinner table and ate her soup tonight! It had tons of different veggies, and she actually used her spoon and ate about half of what I gave her without a single complaint. I'm amazed, really. She has been my picky eater since she was 2. She's now finishing more food than Hannah, before Hannah is finished, with a terrific attitude. Incredible, already.

Hannah is struggling more. We have suspected some sort of fungal or bacterial problem in her gut for awhile (based on things I have read about her specific symptoms), and die-off reactions for her have been hard. She seems depressed. When I told her tonight we were having soup for dinner, she cried. Then she picked up her doll, went upstairs, put on her pajamas and put herself to bed at like 6pm. Nick went upstairs and asked her if she wanted to eat dinner and play a game together afterward and she woke up, but she was still pretty sad through dinner. She regularly tells me, "Why do you have to make this so hard?" Pretty tough. I know we will sooner or later see some breakthrough with her. I sure hope it's sooner.

I received the Gaps Guide book and a GAPS recipe book in the mail today, and though they will be terribly helpful to have, they do not, as I hoped, offer any quicker way to healing. The only way to start adding in foods is to hang out until your system heals. For us, that is currently at intro stage two. The girls and I seem to tolerate some almond butter, but ghee and egg are a no for now. Even avocado seems to cause some gas in all of us - something we had been eating several times a week, even every day. No wonder we haven't been feeling good!

Honestly, it's a little hard to wait for healing, but this experience is also rather freeing to me. I fall back to the way I felt when I learned I needed to be gluten free. I finally know what I need to do to feel good. Who cares what I can't eat? I can actually function! That really is the way I'm feeling about it. As soon as we have a little money I want to buy some Thermoses so we can bring our soup with us when we go out. That will give us a little more freedom than we currently have. We live 20 minutes from town, so by the time we drive into town to do something, we're hungry again. It's hard to bring this kind of food with you without a Thermos. I'm looking forward to the day when my die-off reaction stops and I get to feel like myself again. And in the meantime, I get to eat this warm, nourishing, simple, comforting food.

I kept looking around me at our children today, at Tess as she slept in my arms this afternoon, and getting teary. I love our kids so much, and we finally have hope again.