First day working from home; went well enough.

I’m happy about having gone back to work. I enjoy my job, I enjoy getting out of the house and doing something other than caring for a baby, I enjoy having adults around me during the day. The days are quite rushed now – I need to leave early in the evening in order to get Ingrid home in time, so she can get her meal and bath before it’s time to go to bed. I also take 2 breaks for breastfeeding during the day. So I try to get to work as early as I can, which means the mornings are hurried as well.

And part-time work suits me very well right now. After getting 3 days of adult company and intellectual stimulation (and 1 day of working from home), I can really enjoy my 3 days with Ingrid. I enjoy my days at home much more than I did before I started working.

Today was my first day working from home and it went about as well as I expected. It was hard to concentrate on work with Ingrid demanding attention. Nevertheless I got just over 4 hours’ worth of work done, most of it while she was napping. This leaves about half a workday that I need to make up for during the weekend.

I think I will have to plan my Fridays very carefully – above all to make sure that I can spend all of her naptime working, so that I don’t need to use that time for eating lunch for example. The next best time for working is after she’s woken and eaten – she’s relatively happy to play on her own for a while. As we get closer to the next nap, she gets more tired and wants more and more attention.

Received a letter today: a genuine letter, on paper, hand-written; the first such in many years. Chuffed! Resolved to pass on that good feeling by writing at least one letter myself, too.

Spent the day refactoring. Refactoring is fun. Code gets better and cleaner.

If you are interested in, and perhaps even following, the current debate around the various anti-religious books (Dawkins’ The God Delusion being one of them), you might find this “musing” at 3quarksdaily an interesting read. It examines three main classes of criticism that the books have been subjected to, and has attracted some well-written comments as well.

Took Ingrid to Stepney Green and introduced her to grass.

I’ve concluded that the bug we had was the notorious winter vomiting virus (vinterkräksjukan) which I had previously only known by name. It is also known as viral gastroenteritis, acute nonbacterial gastroenteritis, and (colloquially) stomach flu. The WVV is apparently distinguished from other stomach bugs by the very sudden onset of symptoms (vomiting and diarrhea, plus sometimes stomach pains and low fever). Symptoms last 1 to 3 days and clear up on their own. The disease is most common during November to April (here is a chart of reported cases in Sweden), hence the popular name.

The WVV is caused by caliciviruses / noroviruses and is highly contagious. The Swedish health advice service says that 10 to 100 virus particles is enough to infect you. The virus spreads through direct or indirect contact, not through air – washing your hands is the best way to try and avoid it, but in practice it makes little difference and it is almost impossible to avoid the virus, says an expert at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. The incubation time is 12 to 48 hours, and you’re still spreading the virus up to 2 days after the symptoms disappear. There are many different strains of norovirus and immunity is short-lived, so even if you’ve just had it, you can get it again.

The Swedish NetDoctor site says that about four-fifths of those who come into contact with the virus catch it, but one-fifth don’t. And it’s not because they have developed resistance due to a previous infection – it seems to be a genetic thing. Apparently we are among the four-fifths.

Ingrid’s taken to eating (as opposed to drinking milk) like a duck to water. It’s as if this is what she had been looking forward to all her life. We started last weekend with one meal a day (the afternoon meal), but this Friday she was visibly disappointed when she wasn’t offered “real food” for the late-morning meal so we switched that one to solids as well.

She likes cauliflower and parsnip well enough, accepts small amounts of potato and broccoli but isn’t particularly fond of them, and adores carrots, apples and banana. Her mouth opens wide like the beak of a hungry little bird and if I’m too slow for her taste she starts chasing the spoon with her head. Definitely not a food refuser.

Pretty much recovered. On a steady Coke fast through most of the day, as the thought of food remained somewhat repulsive. Suddenly felt starving hungry in the evening and had a real dinner, which tasted marvellous.

Ingrid sniffling but untouched by the stomach bug.

Stomach bug continues with nausea throughout the day, and because I am breastfeeding while not drinking enough I am now dehydrated and get fever at night. Bleh.

Bug also gets Eric.