Somehow I have been a dad for a whole decade.

Our eldest child turns ten today. How did that happen?

It seems like yesterday (well, perhaps the day before yesterday, or even last week…) when we were in hospital waiting for him to emerge from my wife.

It was a long labour, spanning five days; low amniotic fluid, induced labour, multiple midwives.

But then after the long wait, there he was. Our son. Our first child.

We were suddenly parents. I had a new job now; stay-at-home-dad with our little son.

Nothing can prepare you for this shift in circumstance.

It’s a messy business looking after a baby. There’s always muck to clean up; drool, sick, breast milk, poo, wee, snot. Burp cloths and nappies, onesies and babygrows, useless baby socks that refuse to stay on.

Then there’s the tiredness. Oh, the tiredness. I was once so exhausted during a shopping excursion to the supermarket that I seriously considered abandoning the shopping cart and taking a nap on the floor, in the middle of the cereal aisle. It just looked so comfy and inviting down there, on the dusty, tiled floor.

And yet amidst all the tiredness and mess there are endless baby cuddles and naps and love.

We two had become three and were a family. Nothing would be the same again, and that was just how we liked it.

A couple of years later we three became four.

Of course, babies don’t stay babies forever. They grow and grow and grow, like an out of control weed. Always changing and learning and needing things.

Well now our first weed is ten years old.

Parenting is a funny old game; it is different for everyone, different with every child.

This past decade has been a massive learning curve. Let’s see what the next ten years of parenthood bring…

Oh, and Happy Birthday son!