a couple of slow weeks.

the good news is that the boy’s blood markers have been excellent lately! they’re better than they’ve been in the last year and a half, which is amazing. the boy did take a higher dose of OCS for a while, and is now tapering it off… we’ll see how it goes.

we’ve been keeping to the potato diet, while slowly adding other ingredients to see the reactions. the first was dairy, which was a disastrous reintroduction on the first day, but quickly improved. the second ingredient was chicken — so far, so good. it’s nice to discover these flavors again, one by one. the diet has slowly transformed food from something that was always on my mind, to more of a background thing. i no longer think about going to places with the perspective of eating something there, which was something i’ve always done… it’s weird, but also kind of refreshing.

we’re crocheting carnations in the crafts class, and i’m so pleased with how it’s turning out. i hope i can wear mine proudly on april 25th! speaking of flowers, i bought some tulips at the market, and they made me very happy.

this week, i also installed a watering system on the raised bed, that will hopefully help the garden endure the harsh summer. the system came as a pre-made kit, but was missing some pieces… which made putting the whole thing together a very frustrating experience, with sub-optimal results. :( hopefully we’ll be able to find some more connectors to expand it.

we’ve seen a couple of nice movies these weeks, perfect days by wim wenders (which was so, so beautiful), and at eternity’s gate, about van gogh’s last years. since returning from france, i’ve been curious about his life and work — maybe we’ll go see a few of his paintings on an upcoming trip to the netherlands.

and just today we went to a birdwatching activity in the sapal of castro marim, and ended up seeing a couple of new birds: a red-crested pochard and a pallid swift. swifts are notoriously difficult to tell apart, so it helps to have the experts nearby to point them out. on the way back home, we made a detour to check out a lake that the boy had run by once, and ended up seeing another new bird: a great-spotted cuckoo! we also saw a mama coot with her 2 babies, and the bee-eaters are back in town, their gurgling chirps filling the sky once more! <3