So Carolina and I are parents at last. No matter how many well-intentioned yet dire tidings of forthcoming suffering are offered by friends, relatives and acquaintances, nothing prepares you for the shock of two becoming three.

We readied ourselves as best we could, with books, TV shows and classes. But when our first child Jasper Douglas Cairns arrived a couple of days early, at 5.17am on April 17th, our new reality made a mockery of all that theory work.

Who cares about infant nutrition when you’re trying to fold an Eddie Bauer stroller into the laughable trunk of a Ford Focus? What use are first aid and CPR techniques while wrestling the many-limbed wriggle monster into a state of supplement-ready submission, or forcing his arms and legs into a pyjama suit three months too big?

So rapid has been the rise of my practical parenting star that I have decided to bestow upon myself honourable degrees from the University of Life. I am now a Bachelor of Farts, hold a Masters in Diaper Dynamics and a PhD in Pukeular Physics.

I also awarded myself a Professorship in Restraint: both the kind that prevents a child from being tossed about the backseat in an emergency; and the kind that makes you bite your tongue instead of starting a fight over whose turn it is to change the little man at 4.15am.

Wherever we go, Jasper stops traffic. People ask his name, how he sleeps, the frequency of feeds and vomits, whether we have other kids or are planning to, a million questions. Every week, I’ll do my best to answer them for you.

Sleep well and, I beg you, never take a precious extra hour in bed for granted again.

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