Life is well and truly back to normal. I returned to work this week after 10 months off and it felt as though I had never left.

My desk was a bit dusty, and my email box was bursting at the seams. But otherwise it looked, and I felt, just the same as before.

The only difference - and this is quite a major one - is how hectic my morning routines have become.

For the three days I have to be in my office for 9am, the three preceding hours are just hideous.

It usually starts at around 6am with our four-year-old, Eve, shouting out: "Can I get up yet?" To which my answer is always "No," which then wakes up our ten-month-old baby.

There then follows an hour during which I do my best to stay in bed while our children protest just enough to prevent me and my husband from going back to sleep.

Come 7am, I'm up with the baby and we head down to the kitchen to collect his milk, before staggering into the living room for us both to watch a bit of BBC1.

Within ten minutes, my daughter, bleary-eyed, stumbles down the stairs with her Rapunzel Barbie and her Disney Princess book and then tries to negotiate terms under which she will get dressed.

This morning's was: "Only if you make up a story about Rapunzel being eaten by a crocodile and then saved by a prince."

So I spend the next hour narrating this improbable plot, while prompting her to put on items of clothing. Throughout this, Max kicks up a stink over having his nappy changed and regurgitates several ounces of milk in little puddles on the carpet.

By a quarter to eight, my husband is up, but he then locks himself in the bathroom for 20 minutes. Sly devil.

Just as the children are looking more presentable, I realise I have less than ten minutes to get washed and dressed and find something to eat for breakfast.

Ten minutes to myself would usually be bliss - except this isn't what I get. Eve wants me to give Barbie Rapunzel some plaits, Max fills his nappy again and my husband is in a flap because he is five pence short for our daughter's school dinner money.

I have two minutes in which to get washed and dressed.

I hurry down to the kitchen, where my husband is sorting out Eve's third breakfast (she has abandoned her Cheerios and toast and now wants dried mango). I take over feeding the baby, which results in spoonfuls of oatie mush splattering my dry-clean-only trousers, and have a go at my husband over anything that comes to mind.

I then put two slices of bread in the toaster and stand there for two minutes chattering about the mistakes we're making as parents, unaware that I haven't plugged in the toaster.

It is half past eight. I have run out of time and need to leave the house.

My husband is struggling with getting Max ready for nursery and Eve togged up for school, so I hold the screaming baby while my husband orders Eve to do up her fleece, "or there'll be no telly."

She thinks of a lippy answer, such as: "I'd rather read books anyway."

I am officially late. I give my family a few snatched kisses and jump in the car. I then hit the traffice queues on the Lewes Road, and sigh with relief.