Dad’s World with Jonathan deBurca Butler

ANOTHER day, another milestone. Luke was two last Sunday.

It’s a cliché, but the time had flown by.

I couldn’t believe it was 24 months since he nearly popped out into the world on our sitting-room carpet.

That was a crazy evening. Two weeks late and, in no apparent rush to budge, Ciara was the size of a house by the time he decided to make his move.

In her classic ‘ah-I’ll-be-grand’ style, she went upstairs and had a lie-down after the first few twinges announcing his imminent arrival came on.

When the first fella was born we had gone into hospital too early and were sent back. We didn’t want to do the same again.

Only for the fact that I went up to her an hour later and asked was she OK she might have had the child on the quiet and gone for a little sleep after it.

Luckily, she decided that maybe it was best to come downstairs and sit on, or as it turned out, lie against the couch. I called her mother.

“We’re ready to rock’n’ roll,” I think I said.

She was over in a flash.

I’ve never thought about it before but it must have been quite weird for her; seeing her daughter in quite a bit of distress.

Only, again now that I think about it, Ciara really didn’t seem that distressed. She seemed more uncomfortable than anything else.

On the way from the front door to the car her waters broke.

“You don’t have to change your bottoms,” I said to her as she clung on to the car door and removed her tracksuit bottoms in the darkness.

“The grey ones,” she said, “they’re upstairs.”

I didn’t argue. I ran back into the house, upstairs and grabbed them. I threw them to her as she held on to the passenger door, jumped into the car and waited.

Ciara eventually lumbered in beside me and off we sped.

Luckily, there was very little traffic on the road.

Whatever red lights I encountered were treated as decorations and the result was a record seven minutes from Terenure to Holles Street.

It was just as well. As we walked to the hospital, Ciara got an almighty pain; this baby was on its way whether we were ready or not.

She clung on to the railings outside the hospital and bellowed into the ground.

Later she told me she’d never forget that particular pain, it’s unlikely many of the residents in the neighbourhood will either, though I suspect they’re probably used to wailing of that nature by now.

When the admin people saw her, they decided to whisk her down to the delivery ward straight away.

“We’ll get you in now,” said one of the nurses when we got there.

“Will I get an epidural?” asked Ciara.

“No time for that,” the nurse chuckled as she gazed between Ciara’s legs.

Less than 10 minutes later, this tiny little thing was in his mother’s arms.

He had cried a little when he popped out but he stopped quite quickly afterwards. When everything had been tidied away, the nurses left us alone for a while.

“God, that was pretty easy,” said Ciara.

And compared to the first time round, when every doctor in Ireland descended on us with more tools and beeping machines than an airport mechanic, it was a breeze.

As I carried the cake over to the table the other day and we sang Happy Birthday to Luke, I got quite a lump in my throat.

He was standing up on his chair looking at the cake with those big blue eyes of his.

Occasionally, he would look around at the other people there as if to say, ‘this is great craic, isn’t it’.

He stomped his feet and clapped his hands and when the cake arrived everyone helped to blow out the candles.

Not long after he was born his mother had described him as having what she called “a winning attitude”.

Put another way, he’s easy to be around and he has been since the day he was born. Long may it last.

Happy birthday my lovely little boy.