Pain almost gone, but I'm still too tired/stupid to work. Slow and steady improvement - if it continues I should be fine for work tomorrow. Good thing too as I'm booked for a long weekend, so it would be nice to finish up a few things before going away.

I love modern medicine. It is a sobering thought that the penicillin I take almost for granted was only just becoming available to my grandmothers when they were my age - and not there at all for my great-grandmothers. Presumably women just suffered through UTIs back then, and hoped their immune systems were up to the job.

I found my diary! WOOO! I decided to make a methodical search of the house, starting with the study (last known location) and found it tucked inside one of my lever arch files. HUGE RELIEF AND JOY.

The doctor said Charles is doing fine and that babies just sometimes take longer to get well, we need to concentrate on keeping him hydrated (we are apparently doing really well there) until he's got rid of the virus. Then we can worry about feeding him up again. I think the massive tantrum Charles was having throughout the appointment may have helped reassure the doctor that he wasn't wasting away: both the energy required and the fact he was producing copious tears.

The last three times he's been ill seem to have been triggered by overly rich food, so I am going to have to work hard on my natural impulse to share food with him, and stay firm in the face of distressed hungry toddler (or eat only plain food myself, I suppose). The last two times were in the last hour and definitely my fault :(

Charles was ill late last night, so we have given up on the holiday. We are off work until Friday, so have plenty of time to see Charles get better, if Tony and I manage not to go mad in the meantime. We are trying hard not to be too grumpy but the fact remains we are quite bored, isolated and frustrated. Tony has managed to do some work from home and I've been escaping into some favourite books. My diary is still missing, which is really bugging me, but I haven't yet been able to devote enough time to an intensive search of the house.

Signals are mixed as to how Charles is doing: he is almost back to his normal self in personality, but he is also noticeably thinner, sticking-out ribs and weedy limbs. He is still sick at least twice a day. He has lost at least half a kilo (from a starting point of approx 12kg). I have never been more grateful for being able to breastfeed him, and for not making any push to stop him; at the moment I think I'm his primary source of nutrition and fluids, though we are trying to get plain food and dilute juice into him as well.

We will take him back to the doctor tomorrow.

It was such a relief when Charles started being noisy again yesterday evening! Even the part where he had a good noisy cry. He hasn't had the energy to do that all week.

He isn't completely better, still quite thin and sleeping more than usual, but he is so much more his 'normal' self when awake that I am much happier. He hasn't yet ruled out us going on holiday either, but I am trying hard not to count on that because it could change at any time.

This morning I took him in the buggy to do a couple of local errands (on the basis that the buggy is fairly effective at stopping him coming into contact with other people). Shortly after we got back he climbed back into the buggy, did up the straps (with a bit of help) and pointed imperiously at the door. We took another 10-minute walk around the block, and after that he seemed happy to settle down inside again for a bit.

We've all been going a bit stir-crazy and it's been great to speak to Other People, whether by phone or IRC. Hurrah for technology.

Well, the doctor checked his ears, his throat, listened to his tummy and checked his temperature, and concluded that he has no obvious sign of any serious infection, and that he just maybe has a particularly irritated stomach. She was pleased with his lack of deyhdration, and said he seemed basically ok (apart from the whole being sick part). We were advised to go on letting him eat and drink as he wanted to, to bring him back if he was still ill on Monday, and obviously to call the out-of-hours CamDOC service if he got worse over the weekend.

He seemed cheerful and happy afterwards, asked for lots of the big comforting lunch that Tony cooked up for us ... and threw up again at about 3:30pm.

We've discussed and decided that the latest we're prepared to try to join this party is Monday, because trekking across the country for only a couple of days of holiday seems a bit pointless. The go/no-go should be clear by tomorrow lunchtime - if he's sick after about 11am tomorrow, that's it, we're not going. I think we need to draw a line, because the uncertainty is really getting to us.

To add to the General Fun and Happiness, I have managed to lose my diary, vital keeper of our schedules, between 9pm last night and 10:15am this morning.

Charles was chirpy at first this morning, and then suddenly shifted into subdued mode. He hadn't actually been sick but I felt worried enough to arrange a doctor's appointment anyway. Sure enough, about 5 minutes after I put the phone down, off he went.

I am getting worried now - he should be over this norovirus by now, and I think he's losing weight, despite our best efforts to keep food and water going into him. All the NHS advice is to "trust your parental instincts"; well mine are ringing alarm bells now. I hope the doctor can help.

I'm beginning to doubt we'll ever get on this holiday now; Tony was asking about travel insurance but I'm not sure I actually care. I just want my son to be well.

Until about 3pm I would have reported that we were all tired but slowly recovering. Tony and I were gingerly expanding our range of food, and re-discovering appetites, while Charles seemed better if rather quiet and subdued. I was cautiously thinking of joining the Great Party Holiday on Saturday, in time for the big Saturday-night Surprise Event.

And then Charles threw up again, completely unexpectedly. He was much perkier afterwards, at least for a while, so I suspect his earlier lassitude was down to him feeling pretty rotten.

The end-of-quarantine clock is now reset to 3ish on Saturday, which means we can't get down to the party in time for the Surprise Event, so may as well leave travelling until Sunday.

It also means he's been ill for over 72 hours so I was back on the phone to NHS Direct, who said "hmm, yes, that is a bit unusual, but if he's not showing any of [list of scary symptoms] then probably not worth seeing a doctor today. If he throws up again in the next day, you should probably get on to your surgery, or of course if he gets worse in any way."

Tony and I are both a bit grumpy: probably a mixture of mild cabin-fever, convalescence, and holiday-disappointment. Not being able to properly finish at work in preparation for leave isn't helping my mood either.

We take the 48-hour rule very seriously: it's most likely that Charles caught this bug from someone who wasn't following it, and we wouldn't wish to inflict the misery we've had on anyone else. Taking it to a large house-party (including 3 other young children) would be incredibly antisocial, no matter how grumpy and disappointed we are.

I am going to tempt fate and look up Sunday trains to Minehead. To be honest, if we can't travel on Sunday, we may have bigger things to worry about :(

On the good side, I no longer think we poisoned Charles.

On the bad side, this is because we now seem to have a definite infectious cause: I started feeling ill yesterday evening and passed a most unpleasant night; meanwhile Tony had sole care of still-ill Charles for about 12 hours while I looked after myself, and then got ill today (though less severely).

I was ok from about 5am; Tony is looking better; Charles hasn't been ill since 4pm, but remains very tired. However, to observe the recommended 48-hour quarantine thoroughly stuffs up our holiday plans - the group we are going with departs from Cambridge at 10:30am on Friday, which we now can't do. I just hope it won't cost too much to catch up with them once we're out of quarantine.

Our washing machine has been working overtime. I wisely gave up on cloth nappies yesterday afternoon just to make sure we weren't adding unnecessary laundry, and am very grateful for the good line-drying weather.

Now I need to quickly skim email and then go try to catch up on some much-missed sleep.

Charles developed a mild fever during Thursday night and so on Friday we kept him home and Tony worked a half-day so I could go to work. The fever responded well to infant paracetamol but he was fairly clingy and desperately thirsty much of the day and night.

We decided in the end that Tony & Louise would go to Sheffield by train, and attempt to amend the railcard tickets at the station (thanks lnr for that idea!). Conrad can come back on my ticket. Overall we probably won't be much out of pocket. I rang the B&B to let them know it would just be Tony, but it turned out they were full and unable to move him to a cheaper room.

This morning Charles was no longer feverish. But still very clingy and tired, so after 2 minutes consideration I decided not to pack hurriedly and go along at the last minute after all. I felt more down than I expected when we waved them off though. I was really looking forward to seeing people, and I already know Charles and I won't be at the next big Finch gathering (it clashes with the Wychwood festival).

These last two weeks I have been very glad that I can still breastfeed Charles.

Charles has just been sick again. In just over 36 hours we are supposed to be going to Sheffield by train for a huge Finch family gathering at my sister-in-law Lucy's. Tony's mother Louise is arriving tomorrow and supposed to be travelling there and back with us. Tony's father Conrad is supposed to be travelling back with us (though we haven't yet bought him a ticket) and staying overnight.

If we obey the 48-hour isolation rule, we can't go by train even if he's perfectly healthy from now on, because we can't know if we would expose children, pregnant women, elderly or other immune-compromised people. We could go by car - and then only expose the rest of the family and anyone else in the restaurant, the B&B we're booked into, Lucy's housemates ...

If Charles and I stay behind there's an issue with the train tickets. They were bought with a Family Railcard and thus only valid if travelling with a child. I expect a strict interpretation of the rules says whoever goes needs to buy new valid tickets.

If Charles continues to be ill into the weekend, I am not sure of my ability to nurse him alone for ~36 hours.

Dear LJ, help me think aloud:

Poll #1153658 48-hour rule
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What to do?

I wonder what the deadline is for cancelling the B&B room. I wonder if Louise/Conrad should stay somewhere other than here.

Charles and I have been well since Thursday afternoon. (This 48-hour thing is very sensible - Charles twice went 36 hours between bouts before finally getting well.) Tony managed to avoid being ill altogether. Jonny succumbed Friday but I think is better now.

On Saturday we spent the afternoon with arnhem and L, and I was introduced to the Ukulele Orchestra DVD while Tony spent quality time with L's lego. I was meant to go out for a meal celebrating my friend's escape from ex-work but by the time I needed to leave I was far too tired so wimped out.

On Sunday we made an excellently productive shopping trip into town, for the three Finch birthdays this month and a few other errands. Sunday shopping in Cambridge is almost bearable although we did seem to keep orbiting John Lewis and the not-quite-finished Grand Arcade. Yippee on King Street is fairly child-friendly and Charles approves of noodles.

I am still falling asleep around 8-9pm most evenings (today being an obvious exception), but now mostly avoiding the midnight insomnia. I will assume I just need to sleep a lot, and try not to resent losing evenings with Tony.

Charles greeted James's return from Australia with terrified screams and a tantrum demonstration.

Our cleaner is lovely but just as we are settling into a good routine she is going to miss 4 weeks due to Easter hols and a trip home to her mother. I will try to encourage myself and the other adult residents not to let the place slip back into squalor in the meantime.

Now I'm in quarantine too. No going to work for the rest of this week (and mild guilt about going in yesterday and today - really hope no-one else gets ill).

I can't really work from home while I wait for 48 hours to pass. I can use our standard remote access to read/respond to emails, update helpdesk tickets, and access the intranet and use MS Office. But the stuff I use most is only available if I connect directly to my workstation, and the work firewall won't let me try that as I'm not using Windows.

I commend to you oj+honey with hot water as an easily-digestible yet nutritious fluid.

Charles's quarantine extended to 23:50 on Thursday.

I got something like 4 hours sleep this time. Tony slept in the other room again and got more. Charles seemed happier this morning but very very unhappy about me leaving for work.

I seriously considered getting the pump out this morning so I could leave him some expressed milk, but in the end couldn't face the hassle. Plain food and water while I'm gone, I think.

Caught up on some sleep last night. Charles woke us up this morning by quietly and contentedly chattering in a very cute way. As I was never actually ill myself, I went to work today but took a bit more care than usual over hygiene for the sake of fellow workers. Charles's quarantine from children, pregnant women, elderly, or otherwise reduced-immunity people ends at 3:30pm tomorrow, subject to no further, ah, issues.

That one night resulted in three washloads (at 60°C of course), and Charles ate almost no solids for 36 hours. I'm very grateful I'm still nursing him.

Today I managed to declutter a shelf-full of free baby clothes that has lurked in a guilt-inducing fashion in our room for months and months, and tidied up his current clothes shelf. The majority of the clothes will move on via Freecycle (whence most of them came) as an embarrassing proportion have already been outgrown. There are some nice new additions to his current and future wardrobe, and I kept back my favourites of the outgrown stuff to go in the small stock of "clothes for if we have another one".

I have removed 8 carrier bags of Stuff from the bedroom today, which feels good. Some of it is in the bin, the rest is in holding in the junk room pending charity-shop drop or freecycle.

Being up all night nursing a vomiting child.

I cannot tell now whether I feel sick because I'm also ill but less badly, or because I've spent the night snatching sleep in 20-30min increments. Either way, I am enacting quarantine on the Plague Child and myself until we both seem to be better.

Tony spent the night in a different room to encourage sleep, and is probably not plagueridden, so I may let him go to work later.

On Thursday I went to work and spent as much as possible of the afternoon and evening lying down or at least with my feet up - this owed a lot to Jonny and to CBeebies and to Tony being willing to cancel going to the pub and come home to look after us. On Friday Charles has swimming class in Impington. In theory I can cycle to this. In practice there was no way I was cycling, but as he had just fallen asleep when I picked him up from the childminder, I let him sleep in the buggy and went by bus rather than use James's car. He woke up just as we arrived, having had something like an hour's nap.

We just missed a bus on the way back. No problem, thought I, this is an every-10-minutes service. 15 minutes later a bus clogged with schoolchildren sailed past without stopping. 30 minutes after that, 2 buses came along leapfrogging each other. Charles had eaten all his post-swim snack and I was rapidly running out of songs to sing to keep him distracted from how bored and cold he was. At least there was a bus shelter and it had a seat.

We got home about 4:30 and I had another afternoon/evening of sitting on the sofa or lying on the bed. I fell asleep with Charles around 9:30pm and slept through until nearly 8am, with a couple of brief wakings to feed crying hungry toddler.

We have no plans this weekend so I am going to spend as much of it as possible in bed with books, in hopes that this will help my body deal with whatever tiredness/illness issues it has, and the books will distract me from the urge to get up and Do Many Things. Tony is primed for toddler-wrangling. I am unimpressed by the arrival of a small cough today, though it feeds my theory that among the stresses leading to the recent bout of migraines is the need to fight off the various bugs brought to the office by over-keen colleagues who won't take sick leave unless they are nearly dead.

In any case, I am finding my off-switch this weekend. I'm not always very good at that, and pay for it with the safety-valve alarm of migraines. 3 in a week is a Very Loud Alarm indeed.

Well, the headache passed after a while and I think what I have is a nasty cold rather than a migraine. I spent a lot of yesterday dozy and thirsty and hungry (so rested and drank and ate), and got a few bits and bobs done. By evening I really had to get a move on with preparing an application to the Societies Syndicate for grants on behalf of CUMC as the deadline for submission is today. I woke up to my responsibilities as Junior Treasurer about a week ago and thanks to our excellent Secretary and Gear Secretary I got all the figures together on Wednesday after a spurt of work on Monday and Tuesday evenings, but it took me about 3 hours to put the applications together last night. Never, ever, ever leave things to the last minute, that way you don't have to do them while ill. This morning I had arranged to meet with the Senior Treasurer, a lovely Professor in Pathology, to collect his counter-signature and then I dropped the envelope into the Old Schools. This mild exercise left me shaking and exhausted, so I returned home rather than going into work, and called in sick again.

I'm fine now, so long as I sit still, consume quantities of water and eat about every hour. Don't ask me to think about complicated things quickly.

I seem to be going through another growth spurt: last week most of my knickers stopped fitting, the week before that my swimming costume, and now all but the baggiest of my non-maternity tshirts are too snug. My weight is now around 92-93 kg, about 3 more than when I got pregnant, and up in the last couple of weeks from a long steady hover around 91kg. eBay is brilliant now I know roughly what size I am in various brands: I have managed to find a decent swimsuit, a good stockist of maternity briefs (one has a choice between pants cut to fit below the bump, or over it - in summer I think I do not need the extra layer), two pairs of maternity jeans are on their way which should bring me up to 4 decent pairs of trousers and an emergency spare, and am beginning to look for tops - they seem harder to find in bundles which is what I want for simplicity. I may post a Wanted to freecycle - bundles of maternity wear do get offered on there from time to time, but not yet in my size that I've noticed. I've got more stuff to Offer as well.

One thing I did yesterday was order a batch of reading material on childbirth from the NCT online shop. I find myself with an urge to find out as much as possible about labour, birth, waterbirths and c-sections, even though we're weeks from needing to start birth-plan discussions with the midwife. If it arrives in time, Tony can take it to Kenya to read on the plane. The plan is that by the time we get to the actual birth, Tony and I will have researched and discussed most things that could happen and worked out our contingency plans. What I want is a straightforward non-medicalised labour, but the baby or my body may not cooperate and I think its best to have plans B, C and D if necessary. Also to have someone other than me that knows them because in the worse scenarios I may literally not be able to speak for myself.

With this on my mind, I also attempted to book Tony and I into antenatal classes. The local NCT co-ordinator said they were still confirming details with the local teacher, but a course suitable for my due date should be confirmed soon, most likely in Hardwick. When I mentioned lack-of-car she said usually they manage to arrange liftshares so not to worry. She took my name, due date and mobile number and added me to her waiting list, so I hope we'll be able to get on the course.

Nothing else very interesting happened except that the co-op had a sad lack of houmous.