Although Isaac had his third birthday party last weekend, yesterday was the day itself.

A lot has happened in our world since the day – December 6th 2007 – that Isaac Thomas Liew Wai Kin launched himself into an unsuspecting world (not least the arrival of his brother Toby in January this year). We have watched a tiny baby grow into a toddler, and the toddler develop into a proper little boy. And that proper little boy has developed a personality all his own. Some of it is nature and some nurture, but there are clear characteristics of both Heather and myself in Zac that are plain for all to see.

In terms of physical appearance, he has Heather’s green eyes and brown hair (and, unfortunately, her dad’s hairline), to go with my round face, nose and upper lip. As for his personality and preferences, again there is a mix of both of us there. Zac has inherited my love of technology and generally placid nature but, like me, when he loses his temper he can really let rip. He has Heather’s persistence and sheer Australian bloody-mindedness when it comes to doing something he really wants, and also her need to always be doing at least two things at once. And like both of us, he has a short attention span and he loves books – I mean, really loves books. His ability to memorise text and recite it back to us is frankly scary, and he takes great pride in being able to match both content and intonation perfectly.

Actually, he seems to have a pretty good ear overall. From a very early age, he has been able to identify songs on the radio from the opening notes of an intro, and as regular readers of the blog will know, he has pretty much claimed possession of my his iPod so he can listen to his favourite tracks whenever he wants.

Before I disappear too far down the “isn’t my kid brilliant?” route, I should also mention that he has sadly inherited my two-left-feet dancing gene and he currently shows little interest in sports. But he is growing up so fast: who knows what he will be interested this time next year? (After all, so much has happened to him since his second birthday.) He may want to be a footballer, or he might want to play the sousaphone, or he could just turn into a computer geek. Whatever he chooses, I’m sure it will happen faster than we would expect – he does always seem to be in a terrible hurry! – and we will support him in pursuing those preferences.

Anyhow, all that is in the future. Back to the present.

The build-up to Zac’s birthday pretty much starts in early November, when the annual run of his mates’ parties begins. Every week there is at least one, usually two, and – in the case of last weekend, his own party was one of three he went to.

At the weekend, we had my parents come to us on Saturday – therefore, cake – and then we drove down to Dorset to celebrate with Heather’s mum and Allan on Sunday – therefore, more cake. All in all, that’s a lot of cake.

It’s been lots of fun this year, as he now really understands the concept of birthdays and has spent the last couple of weeks chattering excitedly about it. Just watching him ripping the wrapping off presents and cackling excitedly at their contents has provided us with no small amount of joy. In the morning he crawled into our bed at some ungodly hour (about 5.30am) and filled the room with laughter as he repeatedly opened up a musical birthday card.

I was going to write something deep and meaningful at this point about how Zac has transformed my life, and how much I have changed for the better over the past three years, but I don’t think I really need to spend a few hundred more words stating the bloody obvious. Suffice to say that he has, and consequently I have.

It’s been a great three years. And I look forward to sitting here in a year’s time reflecting on Zac’s fourth year. In the meantime, with his birthday out of the way the official build-up to Christmas can begin. Time to fetch the Christmas tree down from the loft …