Obsessing

At the moment I obsess a lot about Isolde's head getting flat. As infants are supposed to sleep on their back their heads can get flat if they don't get enough tummy time or lie on their back too much. There's no evidence yet that her head is flattening but I'm still obsessing! Probably best to carry her instead of letting her lie on the play blanket! Is she sleeping too much (which will make her head flat)?! Is the pillow* soft enough?! Did I start using the pillow too late?!

* The general advice is to use a pillow until the baby can turn from back to tummy.


Via Anna's iPhone

Sudden Thought

What if my water breaks when I'm outside and it's minus ten degrees?! Nice and warm at first I'm sure but then..? An image of icicles hanging from my legs comes to mind!


Via Anna's iPhone

Day 26: My fears

Image borrowed from http://www.speakwellco.net

Luckily I don't suffer from any of these, at least not severely. I don't want to die for another 70 years or so but it's not something I think about very much (except for once in a while when I hear about a young person my age who has died from cancer or similar - reminds me not to take anything for granted). The only one on the list that could be said to apply to me is fear of darkness. I don't like sleeping alone at all and when Peter is away I often sleep with a light on, albeit a small one in the room next door with the door slightly ajar. It's not the dark as such I'm afraid of though (I assume some people have a phobia whereby they think they are going to be absorbed by the dark or something) but what can't be seen in the dark. Even when Peter is sleeping next to me in the bed I can sometimes wake up, or sort of half wake up, and think I see someone or something in the room and I have to turn my bedside light on. I guess it's due to not being properly awake but still dreaming, or being in a sort of half-, in-between state. Though once I've turned the lights on I'm usually wide awake. Afterwards I usually go back to sleep realtively quickly so it's not a midnight trauma and not a frequent thing either but it happens once in a while.

Show & Tell: My Worst Fear

Olgakatt's third theme for September is nojor - stupid, irrational fears, i.e. phobias of sorts.

I don't have any particular fears, at least not anything I can think of, except perhaps the fear (which is not completely irrational or stupid) that something would happen to Peter. But it's not something I think of every day.

Hence I wasn't sure what to write today. But as always, Google saves the day. The first hit on "nojor" was a site where you can share your "dark inner thoughts" (image borrowed from site).

Some examples from the site and commentary based on personal experience:

• * Why are they looking at me? A few times I have thought this and wondered if I have something on my face or something. But it's not such a strong fear that I have to find a mirror and look. Instead I try to think that probably that guy was looking at me because he found me beautiful! :)
• * Sitting alone in a bar waiting for friends and thinking "what are people thinking? That I'm a loser sitting her my myself, a loser without friends? What if my friend doesn't show up?" This thought has sprung to mind a few times. Luckily I have an iPhone to play with while I wait these days!
• * Thinking that everyone else thinks that I have a strange walk. Just worrying about it made me walk funny. Not in this way maybe, but if you start thinking about how people walk and then how you walk, walking sure starts feeling weird and unnatural.
• * "I was at a party at a girl's place. For those days I tried to contact her because I had forgotten my hat and gloves at her place, but had no response. So I thought she was angry with me and that I had made a fool of myself somehow. Went through the whole evening in my head, all I had done and said. Wrote an e-mail and apologised for doing something stupid. Then I had a response - she was completely unsympathetic and didn't know what I was talking about." I have had thoughts like this but usually I end up thinking "nah, that's just silly, and if s/he is angry with me, it's her/his problem and s/he has to bring it up with me, not the other way around". But first I think that there's a perfectly natural explanation why the person hasn't responded yet.
• * "When I've been in a shop and not bought anything it always feels like everyone thinks I have shoplifted." Ha ha, definitely! Probably look really guilty too even if I'm completely innocent!
• * Having to return home to check that the oven or the iron is off, even if you had made it halfway to work before you had to turn around. I can only remember doing this once. But I sometimes check appliances - if I've been using them that morning - just before I leave.

That's it for me today!

What Kind of Healthcare System Will My Children Have?

Some of the initiatives in the healthcare sector in Sweden are making me a bit worried. The new Op-Ed Dagens Arena - independent, radical and progressive - has written on the topic.

The centre-right Alliance majority in Stockholm County Council has decided to go through with major privatisation in the Stockholm region. One of the places where they are starting is my hometown (where I grew up) Södertälje. According to the proposal on the table all healthare in Södertälje should be privatised, including the emergency hospital. In addition the responsibility for financing and commissioning of the care will be transferred to a private company.

I do not have a problem with private providers of care. What I do not like is when we start financing care through private insurances or handing over responsibility that should remain in public hands. What happens with the democratic governance of the health service and the principles about equality in care ?

The emergency hospital is put in the hands of private profit interests linked to the insurance companies and a monopoly is created consisting of a private company that develops healthcare fully on its own conditions. Simply a private county council in the county council.

As mentioned above, I do not mind diversity of providers in the care sector (or education for that matter), in fact I think it can be a good thing in many ways. But when the majority of these providers are being bought up by big companies or international venture capitalist my alarm bells are ringing.

The centre-right talk about diversity within healthcare, social care services and schools and that different ideas, providers and methods are needed. But sometimes, or really, they seem to be pretty keen on privatisation for the sake of privatisation. Why are private monopolies better than government ones?

As pointed out in Dagens Arena, Fredrik Reinfeldt said in the election campaign last year: "We don't want to sell emergency hospitals. We are not proposing that and I'm happy that you gave me the opportunity to announce that decision tonight." (10 Sep 2007)

But what is this proposal if not selling out the health service in Södertälje? And that is just the start.