It's a Dad's Life:The Missus went away for three days. It was work, but it was also Madrid, so you can understand my less than sympathetic stance.

She had to be up at 4.30am to get to the airport and, as she didn't trust her own alarm, asked me to set mine as back up. So 4.30am rolls around, the phone bleeps and I push her out of the bed. Back to sleep. At 5.15am she wakes me to tell me she's leaving. I'm not sure why I need to be told, but I take the hug gratefully and off she goes. Hugs do make the world go round. However, I'm eyeing the clock nervously, knowing the monsters will be in to jump on my head shortly.

At 5.30am the first one arrives, coughing and crying, just as my eyes are shutting. "Me want a bottle," says the Younger. "A bottle make me better." It briefly flickers across my mind that these are unfortunate phrases that I never want to hear her utter when she's older, but I shove a bottle in her gob, plump up her mother's cooling pillow and settle her down.

At this stage, anxiety at not getting enough kip is overwhelming my ability to nod off. Within minutes, the Younger is snoring and resting her feet on my chin, while I stare at the ceiling and seethe.

Deep breaths. Long, slow, deep breaths. They're not working. I pick up a Martin Amis novel and, sure enough, a couple of pages of him showing off at how well he can write has me drifting off. It's all going to be okay. It seems like minutes later and the phone is beeping again. But it's not the alarm.

The Missus has decided to text me in case I was wondering if she was getting on the aircraft. Apparently she is and it is important that I know. The phone is flung to the pile of decaying laundry in the corner of the room and I admit defeat and crawl out of the scratcher.

I stumble down the stairs, stick on some coffee and see about getting the porridge ready. With time to spare, clothes are laid out, lunches made, kitchen tidied and the dishwasher emptied. At 7.30am, I see about raising my offspring from their pits and am roundly booed. Dejected, neglected and unappreciated, I am beginning to know how Steve Staunton must feel.

Normally, at this point I would stamp my feet and throw a tantrum of my own but with nobody else around to pick up the slack I am forced to adopt the persona of a Buddhist monk.

They won't eat the porridge, they insist on my peeling the skin from the apples and pears I have chopped for them, they don't like the clothes I have chosen, they want to watch TV and they don't want to go to school or creche. Nothing new there so. But in my sleep-deprived state I am conscious that if I react with anger there will be tears thrown into the mix and I can't cope with extra emotional demands on this particular morning.

For the second time in this brand new day I am breathing deeply and practising smiling for Ireland. I plait hair, change nappies, discuss the merits of Dora over Scooby Doo, insist on school shoes not plastic high heels, chuck them in the car and pass them into the arms of their respective educators/carers for the day.

Back home, I resist the lure of my cooing bed and knock the computer on.

E-mails first . . . people are still trying to lend me money and increase the size of my manhood . . . the head is dropping, eyes closing . . . couple of minutes won't hurt, sure I deserve it. Beep beep, text message. Oh good, the Missus has landed. She figured I needed to know.