The world's youngest 30-year-old

When I first started writing this column, I used to write about the things I learned as my daughter and I went through life together; her a starry-eyed baby-slash-toddler, and me a put-upon dad who was home alone all day with this little thing I didn't know what to do yet.

A lot has changed, but at the end of the day, it hasn't.

All the things I yearned for my daughter to do when she was a baby, like communicate with me, sit up on her own, be autonomous and do things for herself, make decisions for herself and have opinions, she can now do.

That's great and everything, but now I find myself at the beck and call of a three-year-old who thinks she's 30. My parents-in-law used to say my wife was the world's youngest 30-year-old. Now, we all know better.

It's not an unfamiliar sight for my daughter to look at me disparagingly, shake her head silently and say 'oh, brother,' after I have failed to accomplish whatever she asked of me.

It's something new every day.

Here's the thing about parenting. At its best, it's the most incredible, rewarding experience of your life, at its worst, well, it's a bit of tough go.

Your kid(s) become the most important thing in your life, and you become so conditioned to looking after them that it becomes second nature. These days, if I don't have to rush home at night, pick up my daughter, start working on dinner and get the dog fed and walked, I don't know what to do with myself.

The days where I can do all that, and not feel stressed, rushed or both, are without question the best kinds of days

And then, there are times like yesterday, when, after watching kids' cartoon shows on TV on and off all day, I switched the TV to the Masters for 30 seconds, and my daughter marches in from the other room and asks, with much venom, why we always have to watch Daddy's show.

Rather than explain to her that she's been playing and watching her show for the better part of the last four hours and that daddy just wants to see who's leading the world's most prestigious golf courses, she rolls her eyes, sighs loudly and said – you guessed it – 'Oh, brother.

Daddies can be so tiring.

But at the end of the day, when I can simply take no more dilly-dallying, wasting time or whatever other sort of nonsense she's dispensing, she'll hit me with a big hug, an 'I love you, Daddy' and a smile.

Makes all the difference. Sometimes, all you need is to feel needed, and for parents, that's the greatest love of all.