It’s been four very pleasant months, I’ll tell you that. The toddler really likes to sleep, which has given me 2+ hours every day to use as I please. Anyone with kids know what kind of amazing luxury that is. I didn’t have any ambitious plans for the parental leave, but I did have a general idea of what we’d do. Did everything work out as expected? Well, the kid is still alive, so I’d definitely call the four months a personal success just because of that. I also managed to get some basic maintenance done around the house, and that’s always a good thing.

During me leave, I’ve had some personal quality time as well. I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time playing Stellaris, Grand Theft Auto V, and a few other games. It’s not the most productive use of ones time, but personally, I think it’s worth it. On the creative side, I’ve managed to shove out more posts on this site than usual. So far this year, I’ve published 49 entries, 10 more than the total amount last year. That deserves a quiet golf clap. The number of readers have come down to a mere trickle, though, as my Facebook clicks have almost dried up.

I should probably write about more juicy stuff than I do now. Perhaps come up with a conspiracy theory, or some other lies, I hear that’s what the kids on the internet are into now.

Progress

No, I’m not forgetting the reason why I’m on parental leave in the first place: Our second born. A lot of things have happened during the four months I’ve been at home with her. In April, she dragged herself around on her elbows. Now in August, she’s running around the house, and outside, albeit somewhat staggering. She trips and falls a lot, but usually gets up again without any complaining, and carries on like a trooper.

In terms of communication, on the other hand, she’s no exactly excelling. She knows a few animal sounds, and have created her own words for “good night”, “hi”, “bye”, and “food”. La familia understands what she wants, but it’s a tad hard for other people to follow her babbling. The kid’s only 15 months old, though, it might be that my expectations are a little high. She understands a hole lot, however, and continues to impress me. A couple of days ago I asked her “could you go into the living room, and get your blue shorts, please.” And lo and behold, she did actually go into the living room, and returned with her blue shorts. So I guess there is hope for the little one.

Hello, Private Sector

So what am I doing when my parental leave soon ends? After 8 years of working on IT projects in the public sector, I’m moving to the dark side; the private sector. It’s a place where budgets actually matter, and where failed projects can have substantial impact on the organization. The public sector clients I’ve worked for simply got a shitload of tax money handed to them every year, but for a commercial, private sector client, the bottom line can be a question of life and death. It will be interesting to see how that affects their willingness to try new ways of working more effectively.

I’ll still be commuting to Oslo, but the new client is located closer to the port. The location will shave off at least 30 minutes on my daily commute, which is 30 very precious minutes. The commuting will enable me to get back to reading books¹. The A Book A Month project has suffered terribly while I’ve been on leave, and it should be resurrected soon. I read Marko Kloos’ fast paced military fiction Terms of Enlistment in April, but that was the last book I read.

Getting back to work will be quite a change. It’ll be great to get challenged professionally on a daily basis again, but I’ve also started to get very used to hanging around the house. We’ll see how I handle the transition.