Weeknotes 34: that overachieving cold
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Week(s)notes more like. I didn’t write anything for a while because scrambling to phone in “nothing new, ugh kids” at 9pm each Sunday was getting dull.
Not sure how to number this. I’ll just add one I guess?
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Lots is new though!
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We went skiing in France for a week with another family (our old neighbours in London). We took the train to Geneva (great) then a minibus transfer to Morzine (🤢). In terms of price per kilometer skied it was certainly the most expensive ski trip ever but it was great nonetheless. We skied a bit, the kids had fun, we talked to other adults. The snow was grim, though — lots of exposed ground and more meadow than piste in many places. Don’t worry! Next year will be normal again!
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Towards the end of the week the baby got a stomach bug (or food poisoning?) and by the time we got home she was worryingly lethargic. We spent the following 48 hours with her in hospital as she recovered from dehydration 😢 After that she got a cold, which the toddler subsequently got as well. Lots of coughing and crap sleep all round.
She’s back at full strength now though, crawling about, pointing at things (“bmm bmm”, “da da”, etc) and exploring the world. It’s really wonderful to see her digging around in a box of puzzles or looking in amazement at someone walking a dog.
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Because of the sickness we had to delay their start at daycare by a week, and then when we eventually did get them started the baby got conjunctivitis (probably from the cold) and had to stay home.
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Then I got conjunctivitis too.
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And after that I got sinusitis, also from that overachieving cold. It initially manifested as sudden toothache but my sister gave me some good diagnostic tips (Does it hurt more when you bend over? Are your ears popping?) and pseudoephedrine seems to be helping with the symptoms. The pharmacy made me fill in a form with my details before they would sell it to me, presumably as it’s a handy precursor for amphetamine production, but I’d have thought the 20 CHF per box of 10 price tag would have put off anyone who could count.
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After two weeks of paying for daycare the toddler has been for 3 hours (once she was better and went back her assigned staff member got sick so the settling in period was cancelled) and the baby just 1. I hope this week we can do better.
Thankfully my inlaws are here to help with the kids at home. Without them we’d be really stuck, and that is with both Nanda and I having enough money and flexible, understanding employers. It must be incredibly tough for low income and/or single parents.
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Speaking of employers: I started at Google last week after my permit stuff was finally resolved! Not ideal timing given the kid sickness but it’s good to finally get going. There is a tremendous amount of stuff to learn but it is fun to peep behind the curtain and see how the sausage is made, so to speak.
Google encourages people to pick a Chromebook as their work laptop so I dutifully did as suggested. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sure a Chromebook is ideal for many people but I’m now so used to a Mac that trying to learn a new computer while also starting a job and dealing with a family was a really stupid idea. I switched back to a MacBook so now the only thing between me and insane productivity is pressing the wrong buttons because I type badly, vs pressing the wrong buttons because I don’t know what the right ones are.