“Okay, darling, just letting you know it’s half-seven. You don’t have to get up now or anything like that but it is a school morning ….
“And don’t bother gathering up your pencil-case and all that stuff you left all over your brother’s desk when you did your homework there last night. I know I asked you six times last night to do it, but like you said, why should you?”
The expression on my 13-year-old daughter’s face as her tousled head pushes against the pillow towards me and her eyes blink open is one of complete bafflement. I leave her to it.
Good morning, it’s Sarcastic Dad!
Maybe I was being a bit Daddy Cool. That might be it? 
Do I love our little wiry terrier mix Bella? Let me count the ways. My favourite thing she does? A bit of context first. She has the run of the house and can be found on any bed, or in any number of cosy spots, or hot spots on a sunny day, but she always returns for a spell in her basket, which is on a low orange corduroy armchair in the dining room end of the long kitchen. It’s also where she sleeps at night.
I was only eight years old and deep in the fretless days of an untroubled boyhood – but copped on enough not to be completely taken in when old Pop Linnane asked if I wanted to keep his dog Spot. 
My father was asleep in his cot at the foot of my bed. Actually, Dad was in the little camping bed I had borrowed when he told me he was coming to Dublin and asked to stay at my Rathmines flat overnight.