And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then – the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two!

The above is one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and it came back to me a couple of months ago, in the week after the birth of my first child – a daughter.

I’ve found it’s the best way to sum up how I feel about fatherhood – like my heart has suddenly grown to fill my entire chest. Symptoms of this cardiac syndrome include chronic grinning-like-an-idiot, becoming suddenly obsessed with taking and displaying photos/videos of the baby, and near-catatonic staring at the little girl when she’s doing nothing but sleeping.

But mostly I feel moments of tremendous strength punctuated by moments of tremendous weakness. I suppose that’s just falling in love.