It's a Dad's Life: Two nights ago both my children slept in their shared bedroom from 8.30pm until 7.30am. Neither woke during the night. I, however, became conscious with a ping sometime before six in the morning, concerned that something was wrong.

It was the first time in more than five years that nobody had screamed me awake with either demands for a bottle, a nappy change, a song (there's no accounting for taste) or that I move to the edge of the mattress to accommodate a five-year-old and her Barbie entourage.

I lay there, savouring the space, making pretend snow angels in my own covers and wondering, was that it? Had we finally made it back to the living, to be among people who regularly go to bed and only rise when their alarm clocks tell them to? Would I suddenly be buzzing with unfamiliar energy and raise my creative output 10-fold? I imagined being able to train with renewed vigour and looked forward to re-discovering human skin, as opposed to bags of crude oil, under my eyes. Then a little concern crept in. Was I not needed as much any more?

I needn't have bloody worried. Last night, the younger screamed for me to bring her a bottle at two. She screamed to tell me her eye was a little irritated and annoying her at four. Irritated and annoying were the words coming to mind in any case. At six, I heard the cries rise again and sank my face into the pillow in exhaustion and dementia. I determined to ignore her, knowing there was a slight chance she'd nod off unaided. And besides, I was near tears with tiredness and stress at the thought of the day ahead.

Then the elder got in on the act. "Shut up, Mia! I'm trying to sleep here for God's sake," she bellowed, seemingly oblivious that she herself has woken us, on average, twice nightly this past five years.

I decided to cut my losses and chuck the elder into our scratcher, hoping that the younger would calm down with her sister's abuse removed from the equation. The alarm was due to kick in at seven, but that remaining hour was more precious than gold. Sure enough, with the elder gone, the younger succumbed to another bottle bribe and crashed back into her pit.

The elder, on the other hand, was taking her frustrations out on us in our bed. "Get off my pillow, Dad. Move your legs, Mum. It's not fair, I caaaan't sleep."

Where 24 hours earlier I had been forecasting my newly sleep-enriched existence, now I was chewing flaps off the insides of my cheeks in despair.

If I ever manage to see a dentist again, I will have to explain why my teeth are ground down to stubs.

At 6.50 her rolling and moaning subsided. Ten minutes later my phone barked that it was time to kick things off for another day. I snoozed it twice before accepting defeat at the third violent intrusion and knocking the bedside lamp on.

"Noooooo!" The elder is holding her eyes and spasming like a vampire caught in the dawn's early light. "It's too early, I'm too tired, I'm not going to school, you can't make me. Noooo!" I roll out of bed and into the bathroom, bringing my face up close to the mirror, to check if any veins have popped in my eyeballs. The exorcism continues in the bedroom. Then noises from the other room, "Eh, eh, eh, Daaaaddy?" At moments like that, a cash offer for both or either of them would be seriously considered. One swallow most certainly does not make a summer.