Getting Started ...

I became a Dad 6 years, 10 months and 10 days ago.  I had no qualifications (apart from the obvious), and no experience.  I had some good role modelling from my own parents and parents-in-law, but hadn't really developed my own style or identity as Dad.

I still remember the confusion of checking my wife into the hospital, and being sent home.  The sleepless night waiting for the phone to ring.  The utter bewilderment of getting to the hospital unable to find where they'd stashed the soon-to-be-mother of my soon-to-be-child.

And when my eldest daughter was born, the tidal surges of emotion, worry, and anxiety subsided, like a storm being calmed.  Holding my tiny, fragile girl.  Looking at my exhausted, beaming wife.  Peace.  Wholeness.  Goodness.

It seemed like some unaccountable mistake when we were allowed to take her home a few days later.  I felt so very small in our rented federation house in Bendigo, wife and daughter beside me.  What now?

There have been 6 years, 10 months and 10 days of "what now"s, and another daughter and son into the mix. I have had Dad moments when I've felt like the soloist in the Symphony - riding the music of the other musicians, borne aloft by it, song flowing immediately from idea to actuality.  And there have been Dad moments when I've felt like the tympanist (all "boom boom, duh duh boom").

This page is my place to process some of what happens in my family, to reflect on what happened in my family of origin, and to work out how God wants to lead and grow us.

Enjoy the music ...