Look! I'm back! My first day back at work, and thus, back into the saddle of updating regularly.

There now; that wasn't so bad, was it?

It took me nearly twenty minutes just to get into my computer this morning - there were a whole fistful of security updates while I was out of the office, and so not only did they all have to be installed this morning, but the dumb machine had to reboot after each and every update.

It's an auspicious return to work. I'm on what I hope is the downside of a cold, but it looked this morning like Penny'd finally caught it. (Matt got it first, then me - it was only a matter of time before she picked it up from us.)

For Matt and I, the cold has been primarily congestion - post-nasal drip and the sore throat that goes along with it, and the sniffles, and the cotton-in-the-ears feeling... For Penny, though, it seems to have manifested as a low-grade fever (99.6 or so) and an inability to keep her food down. She started spitting up immediately after her 2am feeding, and didn't really stop.

So I've been up since about 4:30 this morning. Excuse me if I'm a bit punchy.

Of course, if the fever spikes the daycare center is going to call Matt and tell him to take her home. I'm not sure what we'll do in that case. If a child goes home sick from daycare, they're not permitted back until they've been well for 24 hours.

Leave? What leave?

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that I have an office to myself. If I absolutely have to, I can probably bring Penny to work with me. I'd just have to rig up a cradle/playpen for her.

One hundred and ninety-five e-mails in my inbox. Not bad, considering I was out for two months.

I kind of messed a few people up, though, because I came back two days earlier than I'd originally planned - my timecard for the current pay period was already turned in. So I'll have to file an update. I'm not too worried about it; it's only one item in a huge stack of paperwork I've got to do now.

Still, should I confess it's actually kind of nice to be back? I like most of the people I work with, and let's face it: There's a pretty hard limit to the amount of daytime TV one can be exposed to before one goes quite mad.

So I expect to spend the rest of this week getting back into the swing of things, with occasional calls to the daycare center to check up on Penny (and frequent visits to the picture collections for my own gratification). But really, it hardly feels like I was gone.

I'm already making up lists of things I need to remember tomorrow. My iPod. Cough drops. A picture of Penny for my desk (you wouldn't believe how many people have asked to see one, just in the last 15 minutes).

And now, to dive into those 195 - 196, now - e-mails.

--Liz