It doesn’t look like I’m going to have time to do anything much this week, although there’s a lot going on and hopefully sooner or later I’ll be able to share some of it with you. Normally I’d leverage this fact into a self-obsessed whine-fest, but I’m going to try something a little bit different today.

I want to thank my family, specifically Mrs. Hatboy, Wump and Toop, for putting up with me.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, but tolerating my mood swings and my sulking and my low threshold for pretty much anything is a full-time job, and I let them down way more often than they let me down.

Mrs. Hatboy regularly exclaims to me about what a great dad I am and how I’m the best dad ever. But the sad truth is, hyperbole aside, that’s an easy bar to clear. I just have to show up, display a glimmering of interest from time to time, and spend the occasional afternoon and small wad of cash going to a fun park or a water park or whatever. I have to make the occasional gesture, and that’s it. Hopefully that will balance out the rest and Wump and Toop won’t end up too psychologically scarred or disillusioned.

And that’s all I need to do to qualify. Frankly I don’t think there should be an award for something as easy as not murdering your kids.

Being the best mum ever, now that’s an achievement. It’s thankless, it’s gruelling, it’s constant. It’s an emotionally and a physically exhausting calling, and there are no words to express how important it is.

And yes, in a lot of families those roles are reversed, and some families share it more evenly than others, and plenty of families just have one parent or are otherwise structured differently, and many families don’t have the means to make the same gestures we do. It’s a monumental job, however you slice it. I’m talking about how my family works. You want to tell us about yours, go ahead.

Mrs. Hatboy is a hero, and her heroism goes unrecognised every day. So today, in this stupid and empty little way, I’m recognising it. And I’m still somehow making this all about me, and flashing around my big dumb words like I deserve praise for this, but I don’t. It’s all for her.

Here’s to you, Mrs. Hatboy. You’re the best person I have ever known, and you make me better just by existing.