It's been a full week since my fast, and things are still going pretty well. I regained about 100 grams once I started eating again, which I expected, but then I dropped another half kilo, putting me at 3.7 kilos below where I started. Except for the fact that I added meat to my diet on Thursday, I haven't been eating anything that's not in the fasting how-to book that Esther has and always uses as a guide. So I've been eating a lot of whole grains, salads, and steamed vegetables. I'm really surprised at how delicious and satisfying everything has been, since I generally don't like vegetables and never feel satisfied without red meat. All of my meals are cooked one at a time in single portions, so it's impossible to overeat, and I've been forcing myself to chew my food until it's almost not food anymore so that I don't eat too fast and my brain can process when I've had enough. Like I said, it's going really well and I intend to keep this up a long time ago.

The other big thing that's happened during this past week is that I've started running. I haven't run in literally at least 2 years, and I gave it a try for the first time on Monday. I didn't run very far or particularly hard (for obvious reasons) but I was still running. And the best part is that my knees don't hurt. They were achy at first, but it was just because they're not used to being used that way, not an injury pain. I took Thursday off to let my legs recover a little bit (my quads and shins have been so sore!) and I didn't run today because I was too tired to get up at 6 when I would have needed to in order to run, but other than that I've run every day this week. My intention is to run at least 4 days a week, preferably 5 or 6, and gradually build up to longer distances. That's the reason that I've added meat to my diet, too. I was afraid that I'm not getting enough protein with what I've been eating to build the muscle I need to keep running, so I've been eating turkey and chicken breasts at lunch. As with the whole eating healthy thing, I'm going to have to work hard to maintain this as long as possible.

Today I had a little adventure. I met up in Köln with the other au pairs from MultiKultur and we took a trip to Brühl to visit the 18th century castle there. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, since my last experience with the au pair gathering was kind of a waste of time, but it was actually a lot of fun. There were 7 girls there from Brazil who all hung out together speaking Portuguese the whole time, but they were at least open to talking to other people and didn't entirely seclude themselves. I spent most of the time with these 3 girls from the Czech Republic and a girl from Chile who's only been here for a month. In total there were 24 of us there, so it was a pretty big group. It's kind of frustrating, though, that every time someone asks where I'm from and I say America, their immediate response is, "Good! We can speak English." I don't want to speak English. If I wanted to speak English I would've stayed at home. The problem is that for most of them their German is not so good, so they'd rather speak English. But when I continue talking to them in German they switch back (it's hard to respond to a foreign language in a different foreign language) so it wasn't too bad. After we got back from Brühl the Chilean, a couple of the Czech girls and I went to the gelatto place in the Hauptbahnhof to get some ice cream (I broke my diet, but I only had a little bit) and hang out for a little bit. One of the Czech girls lives actually pretty close to me, on the way from Königsdorf to Köln with the S-Bahn, so we're going to try to get together every once in a while. Unfortunately none of the people I was hanging out with today are going to Paris next month, but the girl from my language course is so I won't be alone on that trip, either.

As far as everything else that's been going on, all I can say is that I'm exhausted. Gustav has been absolutely horrible lately with all of his whining and crying and complaining. He's seriously driving everyone a little crazy with it because he starts whining before anything is even actually wrong. For example, if he wants something that Pauline has in her hand, he doesn't ask her for it but instead starts crying and saying that he wants it. It's almost like he doesn't talk anymore, he just fusses all the time, and cries for his mom. Of course it isn't really all the time, but it certainly feels that way to us. He got a new bunk bed this week which he's really excited about, so at least he's willing to go to bed at night. Pauline's deal now is that she basically refuses to sleep. Because it's still light outside until 9 pm, it's almost impossible to get the kids to come in from outside to get ready for bed anyway. Then Pauline sits there demanding more milk and playing with her toys and crying and everything else for hours. Last night she insisted that she sleep on her rug, and then couldn't sleep very soundly because she was uncomfortable, and when I tried to move her to her bed she started screaming at the top of her lungs, calling out for momma. I gave her more milk but she wouldn't drink it, and every time she stopped crying she would make herself start again. It was 10 at night and I had to sit in her room humming lullabies for 20 minutes to get her to fall asleep. Tonight she did the same thing with insisting to be on the rug and then crying for her mom. This is the most difficulty that I've had with either of this kids while Esther and Olaf aren't here. And then there's poor little Amelie, who's depressed right now because she's in heat. She has to wear this little doggie diaper with pads in it so she doesn't make a mess in the house, and when we go out for walks she's constantly being harassed by all the male dogs. She looks up at me with these big, sad, confused eyes because her hormones are telling her to breed but she knows she's not allowed to. It's really pathetic. She's been having a lot of fun going running with me in the morning, though, so at least that makes her happy.