You say goodbye, and I say

shh, don't let the kids hear you going out!

Every week my husband leaves to work in Sligo for three days, and there are 3 ways to do this:

- he gets up at 5:30 and makes a beeline for the early train/plane
- we drive him to the train station at 6:00 the night before
- he sneaks out of the house around 6 the night before and gets himself to the train.

I like option 1. That way, it's like he just sort of vaporises into the atmosphere and the kids don't really notice he's gone.

Option 2 is terrible. There are often tears of loss and grief in the car when he gives us his lopsided grin and wave on his way into the station and I end up having to cuddle the 6 year old and feed her ice cream to compensate for the tragic departure of her dad.

We did option 3 tonight. I feel evil when we do this, but I suppose it's just as well for the kids. Only, there'll be "where's daddy?" questions asked later and I'll have to say something preposterous like, "he went to the store, and he's coming back late. Very late."

And not to mention the hardship of being alone with myself til Friday night! I can never win an argument.