It was Murphy’s Law, of course. An inevitable that’ll-teach-ya for breaking one of the golden laws of parenting: never take off a nappy if you don’t have a replacement immediately to hand.   

Especially when your six-week-old baby has been stewing and straining and writhing in his cot. And double-especially (that’s a thing) when he just had the live rotavirus vaccine and it’s playing havoc with his belly.   

It was just as I bent his legs up and put a little squeeze on his stomach that I sensed it. Something in the air. A drop in barometric pressure. A little facial expression, perhaps.  

It might have been 2am but I threw myself back and across the room, out of the line of fire. It was like that scene in The Matrix, where time stops and Neo dodges bullets.   

You know in a horror movie when someone has their throat slit, and the blood sprays on the wall? It’s a pattern, an arc, a kind of parabola of crimson gore.   

It was like that. Except yellow. An explosion of you-know-what was in his tummy one second, and literally dripping down the wall the next. And the bin. And on the laundry basket, the exposed floorboards and the corner of the chunky woolknit carpet. Somehow, he got it through the crack of the door to my wardrobe, a patina of tiny little specks down on my shoes.   

The distance he covered was unbelievable. I actually pulled out a tape measure the next morning... from the change table to the wall was 90-odd centimetres: twice his height.   

In relative terms, it’s as if I pulled, twisted, and strained and pulled up my legs and propelled my last meal across three and a half metres of open territory. Guiness World Records, give us a call!   

I hosed him down, delivered him to his mum, fetched the disinfectant and started scrubbing the walls.  

The next morning, I put him on the change table again.   

This time he wasn’t squirming. His tummy was a bit more settled.   

As I re-dressed him and pulled on his onesie, I sang to my son, and he stared up into my eyes.   

“It’s our problem freeeee,” I sang. His face changed just a little as he cooed... was that a smile?   

“Philosophyyyyy,” he squealed.   

“Hakuna Matata,” his little mouth broke out in a giant smile. No question. An unmistakable smile. His whole face, his whole body seemed to smile with him. Just for me.  

I felt my chest flood with endorphins. It was the craziest physical reaction, just this rush, this sweep of joy and love.   

It said it all, really. Dripping walls one days and his first smiles for Dad the next.   

Welcome to parenting.