Over the course of this weekend, I've gradually come to the conclusion that some kind of almighty, all-seeing higher power (possibly Lisa) is watching over me and telling me to quit the rat race and start working from home.

Actually, on the subject of rats, Amelie was playing a game on Saturday in which she was pretending to be a mouse called Emily (she clearly went on a long mental journey before coming up with that name). Unfortunately, during the course of the game, Lisa upset her by refusing to give in to her seventeenth unreasonable demand of the day, which resulted in Amelie throwing a mini-tantrum, stamping her feet, and telling Lisa that she doesn't like her any more. After which she scowled at her mother and stormed off into the next room. But as she did so, she paused in the doorway for a moment, pouted, and said:

"I'm going back to my mouse hole!"

Maybe you had to be there, but it was actually very funny. Lisa and I couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes. Which only annoyed Amelie even more. I don't think she liked either of us after that.

But problem children aside, I've spent the past couple of weeks trying - and failing - to find some time during the course of my working days to write some stuff for a case study I'm hoping to present in the form of a poster at an upcoming conference. Unfortunately I've made very little progress. Unlike the retinopathy of the patient I'm presenting. Yesterday, however, I had a full timetable of childcare, and yet managed to get my work done as well.

Lisa took Amelie to church in the morning, and then to swimming in the afternoon, so when you factor in the time it took them both to get ready, and the hours they spent arguing about which shoes Amelie should wear, it meant that I was basically looking after Toby all day. Which is harder now that you can't put him down somewhere and expect him to still be there when you get back.

But in a moment of unbridled optimism, I opened a blank Word document in the morning, pulled up three medical journals, and then went about my daily chores. By the evening I'd done three lots of dishes, four loads of washing (we don't wear that many clothes, but I changed the bedding for all four of us, then did the towels, Lisa's slippers and a cat), put away our grocery delivery from Asda, prepared Toby's meals, tried to teach him to cruise (we don't live far from Duke's Mound), judged an art competition for Amelie, and wiped up quite a lot of vomit. And yet, in the midst of it all, my blank Word document was transformed into an 800-word case study. I might have only written 80 words an hour, but by the end of the day it was done.

The question is, do I need to take over all the babycare and start working from home, or do I just need Amelie to go out more..?