Birthday – The Out of Depth Dad

Specs, Hugs and Bacon Rolls: The anatomy of a dad’s birthday

Suddenly a cry rings out, causing a shudder of tiredness to run up my spine and take root in the bags under my eyes. Next, probably by magic, your feet find the floor and you question y our existence. The door opens and a night light illuminates the face of a crying toddler, you smile broadly – pushing back your own desire to cry. Then, tot in arms, you collapse into the chair and break into a droning “Incy Wincy Spider…” as you look at the clock. It’s 3 am. But the tot doesn’t care about the time. Why? You get your answer as the full flavour of the nappy he’s just filled wafts towards you. Happy Birthday.

Fatherhood: The Story So Far…

It’s the odd thing about milestones, I just don’t see them.
What I mean is, I’ve never actually noticed a milestone at the time it happened. Rather I’ve only been able to see the moments that marked real, tangible, progression in my life retrospectively.

I think this may be a side effect of being busy. Actually ‘busy’, if I’m honest, doesn’t quite cover it. For the last 2 years I’ve been so manically active, so frantically ‘on task’, that ‘busy’ sounds like a rest.

And no, I’m not about to start moaning about how hard parenting is. We’ve all heard that a 1000 times before.
Parenting is hard.
But that isn’t newsworthy, there is no breaking story there.
It’s always been hard. It will always be hard.
That’s just the way it is. Sorry folks.

I’m keen, however, as my son achieves his second birthday, to look back at my first 24 months of fatherhood.

What have I learned? If anything?
Am I still out of my depth? It’s likely.
Do I continue to make points in lists of 3? Definitely.

Here’s Fatherhood: The Story So Far…