With apologies to one independent, feisty little Hispanic chick I think we have all earned the right to dance around singing “We did it!, We did it, We did it!!! - Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!”

That’s right, the baby - Usurper - has made it to her first birthday, and to top it off she is fast changing from a baby into a fully fledged and highly dangerous toddler!

But now is not the time to panic about a future filled with catching a daredevil toddler as she tries to jump from the roof into a wading pool with 3 inches of water in it.

Nor is it a time to reflect on the last 12 months - because such reflection only leads to me sitting in a corner, head in hands rocking back in forth as I try and work out how we managed to get here relatively safely (you know the feeling, the same one you get when you roll your car 7 times down the freeway and totally destroy it, but you manage to walk away with nothing more than ruffled hair. You know you should be ecstatic, but you can’t shake the feeling that you really should be dead and that it has all gone horribly wrong somehow).

No today is a day for neither looking forward, now looking back, today is a day for simply gazing into the eyes of those you love and knowing that for that split second everything has been worth it and life simply doesn’t get any better than it does at that point………………………

…………… and then the crying starts again and reality sets it in and you drag your sorry ass over to the cot, pick up you child, and through bleary eyes and a headache caused by a lack of sleep only one thought keeps running through you mind “I am so tired I want to die, I just want 10 minutes to myself, why won’t you please just stop crying? Even when in this sleep deprived stupor I have never felt more alive than I do when I am rocking you in my arms, you have made me a better man just by being here, I love you, thank you for letting me be your father …………………. now shut the f*ck up’