It’s not easy having kids – and I’m sure you would agree with me. Still, it’s a fantastic experience to have kids. I would never trade having kids even if Dr. Emmett Brown arrived at my front door in his super cool DeLorean and offered me an incredible adventure.

That said, some days are much harder than others, and those days really test your endurance.  It’s not so much the actual iron man challenge, but the days after a serious parent challenge such as a nightly feed, teething or fever episodes.

Despite how many kids you have, each kid is different when it comes to pooh consistency, toilet training, teething and fashion.  And, that goes for all our three kids.  We have 3 gorgeous kids who are hugely different from each other.

As with the two older kids, I help out a lot (at least I like to think so). When it comes to our youngest, I help out with the nightly feeds and calming her down during bad teething days.

However, so far our youngest daughter has developed a strong sense of “I’m mummy’s girl” symptoms. She sees any opportunity to be with my wife.  Now, that’s not a bad thing for me, as it means that many nights my wife is forced to soothe her, with some of the white stuff on tap (breast milk of course).  It works every time.

But, we live in a lovely and sharing relationship, so this “morning” my wife felt it was my turn to chip in to soothe the poor teething baby, as she started to whine.  It was not even 4am!  it was not the fact she wanted to share the task, but it was the affectionate method of asking me.

I was awaken by some severe blows to my left arm, which I thought was caused by the Uruk Hai I was wrestling in Fangorn Forest, but it was merely my lovely little South American flower who demanded that it was my turn.

As my baby girl calmly screamed her lungs out, I gently picked her up and attempted to calm her down.  Initially she calmed down, until she realised I wasn’t the same person who provides her with free happy hour milk supply. I probably look scarier in the dim light, so her scream went from 10dB to about 37dB.  In order to keep the other kids safe in Narnia dreamland, I closed the door to our bedroom.

Some people might disagree, but I have not yet developed man-boobs, so I can’t trick the little one with that option.  Also, it feels somewhat strange to have her frantically searching for the nipple and I’m sure my masculine chest carpet was tickling her nose too.

I wasn’t beaten that easy, so I started to walk around with her while singing (well, humming) a lullaby.  Just for the record, I sound like a King Diamond version of Leonard Cohen. So, singing ‘Rockabye Baby’ probably sounded as good as when you use a dog whistle for dogs.  Same reaction from both by the way; kid starts screaming more and dogs starts to whine or howl.

The poor little beauty continued to scream and rubbing her gums.  I was looking at the alarm clock and 40 minutes had just flown by – I guess time flies when you’re having fun!  I soon had to get up and prepare breakfast for the other hobbits, so time was of the essence.

Suddenly, my wife suddenly erupted like some vulcano and her voice brought back memories from when she was giving birth.  “TRY SOMETHING ELSE, it’s clearly not working!”.

This is NOT the time where you disagree or argue with your wife, so I calmly said “No shit Sherlock”, which didn’t go down too well.

I was running out of options, so I flipped the little bundle of joy on to her belly.  It was quiet.  She had stopped crying.  Perhaps she was just exhausted or perhaps it was my singing – or worse, she was pissed off that I didn’t have any milk.  Either way, a calmness descended on the house.

She had fallen asleep, much against her will, but her breathing was relaxed and her head was nodding like those little dogs for the cars.

I gently wrapped her in her duvet and placed her in her cot again.  Still sleeping.  I was the champion of parenting and I must surely deserve some kind of award.  As a thief in the night, I ran to my bed and attempted to fall asleep.

5 minutes later she woke up again!  I turned and slapped the missus on her arm – “Your Turn!

She gave it a go, but cheated.  She flipped out the ol’ tap system and gave her a drink.  Within seconds, the little beauty was flying into the skies above Legoland, while kicking little bunny teddies and drinking home-brewed milk.

I cannot compete with those tricks.  It takes a big man to admit defeat, and I’m not a big man, so I said goodnight – again.

20 minutes later, around 5.20am, we were woken up by our eldest daughter going to the toilet and flushing the toilet – even if we have a rule that states that you should not flush the toilet at night.

At around 6am, our son woke up and started to chant loudly and laugh, while walking into our bedroom.  I kindly guided him back to bed. He was sleep walking. By 6.15am the entire family was sound asleep again.  The alarm rang at 6.50am.

It can be difficult to be fully awake and concentrated the day after such a night.  In my young days I could have gone clubbing until 6am and still go to college.  But not now.

I had to prepare breakfast, clothes and lunchboxes for the kids, while ironing my shirt for work.  Then dropping the girl off to school and then spend 8 hours in the office.  I do apologise if I seem a bit distant at times.