Keep up the day job, love

I have been conducting an interesting experiment, and I can now confirm that it is not physically possible to remain entirely sane and healthy trying to run a day job (publisher) alongside a night job (nurse, provider of flexible sleeping arrangements and chief bottle washer). It is even less possible to do so if you try to run a social life alongside these things. So the last week or so, Paul and I have had an unusually sociable time of it, what with all the gig-going (Electrelane two weeks ago followed last night by the Fountains of Wayne at the Astoria) and dining out at fancy restaurants (luckily that's only a once-a-year phenomenon; boy, it was expensive). I seem to have been spending an unusual amount of time in bars and pubs, too (I'm sure you're all starting to think I'm an old lush - banish that thought!) Then Ava has come down with a nasty ear, nose and throat infection which means she coughs herself awake on a regular basis through each night, cries, comes into bed for a cuddle and drifts off to sleep on my chest while I sit semi-upright trying to aid her breathing and .... not sleeping myself.
Unfortunately it's the day job that pays the wages. I wisely therefore pour quite a bit of energy into 'keeping my end up' as we Brits so delightfully put it, when at work. Which, I'm afraid, sometimes leaves my poor family slightly wanting in terms of love, affection, time, even friendliness - from me. Did I ever mention the guilt? Oh, it comes by the bucketload.