Cry like a man!

A few months ago my sister's husband Mark told me that he'd cried when his children were born.

"You wait," he said. "You'll do the same when Joe-Joe arrives."

"I bet I don't," I wishfully declared.

"Mark my words. You'll cry when he's born and if you don't then you're not human!"

After the conversation, I asked a few fathers if they'd cried when their children came into the world. "Yeah, like a baby," was the consensus, with my father-in-law admitting that when my wife was born he'd hid in the hospital broom cupboard so nobody would see the tears rolling down his face.

Ten days ago when Joe-Joe was born I surprised myself and everyone who knows me by failing to shed even one tear. And since then my wife has been calling me 'Tin Man', as like the character in 'The Wizard of Oz' she says "I don't have a heart". It seems my failure to bawl like a baby has annoyed her so much that at every opportunity since she reminds me of all the times I've cried in the past.

"I caught you sniffling at that stupid TV programme 'Football Idol' when that soccer player told his dad that he'd earned a professional contract, but you didn't cry when Joe-Joe was born!"

"You weeped like a wuss when we watched the film 'The Sea Inside', but not a tear touched your cheek in that delivery room!"

"You told me that you cried when Spurs won the 1991 FA Cup Final, but the birth of your boy didn't merit one teardrop. You loser!"

Thankfully, that all changed last night when Deborah revealed as we watched a TV documentary about the Beach Boys that she'd cried on her first night alone in the hospital with Joe-Joe. She said: "I was listening to the radio when they played 'God Only Knows' by the Beach Boys. It really got to me," she said. "Especially the part where they sing, 'If you should ever leave me. Well life would still go on believe me. The World could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me. God only knows what I'd be without you."

Right on cue, the TV programme cut to Beach Boy Carl Wilson singing the opening lines from that very song and my wife began to cry once again. Within seconds my bottom lip went and I joined her in a group hug and crying session with our boy. "At last," she sobbed. "You are human after all!"

Within 24 hours I was at it again - this time when I was woken up on Father's Day with breakfast in bed and a card which read: "Dear Daddy, I might be little but I'm not stupid...and I know that I have the best Daddy in the world. Love Joe-Joe (aged 10 days) xxx"

The tears flowed as I proved once again that normal service had been resumed.

(Latest dirty nappy score - Daddy 8 Mummy 11)

Bleary-eyed or is it teary-eyed?