And so it began

I'm going to follow the advice given to the White Rabbit by the King in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I'll begin at the beginning and go on till I come to the end; and then stop.

The beginning was the receipt of the most wonderful, most concise, and most life changing text any man can receive. 'I am pregnant'.

Lots followed. There was the waiting for the test results, the agonising over pram selection, the hurried reading of baby books not to mention the cloyingly saccharine baby websites (more on each in later blogs). Then, then about 8 months later, there was the tap on the shoulder at two in the morning followed by the calm announcement that 'I'm pretty sure I'm in labour'.

Fast forward to 12 weeks later. My wife stoically heads off to work leaving our son Sauce (the wife doesn't like the nickname either) in my fumbling care. The instructions I had received were clear, and with help just a phone call away, the first day went to plan. Feed, change, play, change, sleep, change, feed...ad infinitum. Ten hours later the boss was home, the house was clean, dinner was cooked and most importantly Sauce was still happy.

Day two, well day two didn't quite go to plan. See, having got through the first day unscathed, I figured all our days together would run with such precision. The wee man, however, didn't fancy it. I tried to get him on schedule and the more I tried to make things go to plan the more I upset him. The more upset he became, the more I tried to get things to go to plan - it's a terrible coping mechanism and I don't recommend it to anyone.

Come 2pm I was a mess, Sauce wasn't happy, and I wasn't sure this whole thing was going to work. Near breaking point I called the expert and with her calm guidance threw the plan out the window, gave him a bath, opened some wine - and what do you know everything was copacetic.

From that point on we still have plans, the house is pretty clean, dinner is almost always on the table but my lesson has been learned. There is only one timetable. His.