Last Thursday was Harry's birthday which means I've been a Dad for 6 years and 3 days, and I now know what it really means to be a parent. For the first 3 years and 3 weeks I could have been a much better one. Since then, though, I've been a Mum as well, and I have to take my hat off to all mothers for their patience and hard work. All of us Dads should.

Admittedly, I have a fantastic Nanny to help with the children during the day five days a week, but she's been on holiday and honeymoon for the last two weeks and won't be back for another three days (and counting), and our cleaner's away as well - so things have been fairly fraught around the house recently.

Car crashes, TV interviews, campaigning, Harry's 6th birthday and his party aside, when I haven't been working I've been cooking, cleaning, shopping, bathing, dressing, clearing up 'puddles', reassuring and loving for my children, and I'm exhausted. The house is a total mess, but our clothes, although not ironed, are clean. Harry has done his homework and he and Emily are bathed with clean hair and tucked up in bed.

At the children's party we went to at Battersea Zoo this afternoon, the birthday boy's Mum, Nicky, said to me, "I don't know how you do it, Ben. I really don't."

To me, the answer is obvious. I do it because I have no choice and because I love my children. I don't like the hand we've been dealt, but I'm sure as hell going to play it to the best of my ability.

I wish I hadn't waited until Jessica's death to take the opportunity.

We've just tucked into a cheese and bacon quiche, which went down really well. The veg is a bit more of a struggle, particularly with Emily.

While we were staying with Granny Min earlier in the week, Emily developed an addiction to a cartoon version of Treasure Island, watching it back to back as often as she could, and is now fixated with pirates.

Cue scurvy terror stories from Daddy. “The pirates got really ill because they didn't have any vegetables to eat, but we're lucky, we have and broccoli is one of the best vegetables you can eat.”

Harry then told us all about how the pirates drank lots of rum which also made them ill, because “Rum is a fainting drink like wine, isn't that right, Daddy?”

Absolutely. The broccoli's all gone too.

When you're bereaved, people invariably want to say the right thing. That's if you're lucky; if not they'll want to impart some great wisdom that is based not on fact, but misguided supposition.

One of the things I was told a few years ago was that, “at least you'll be able to bring up your kids the way you want to.”

An interesting thought. It's true – Jessica and I didn't always agree. We were equally capable of disagreeing on any of a range of subjects, child-raising included. We both enjoyed having our own view points, but knew that the core of our beliefs was firmly founded in the same mould as the other's.

Thus, although a disagreement about parenting was likely, there was no doubt in each of our minds who Harry's (and albeit briefly, Emily's) best mother and best father were.

The art now is not in bringing the two of them up in the way that I want, but rather in the way that they would have been, despite the circumstances.

I'm sure that if Jessica were to comment now, she would have a list of things I wasn't doing right, but I also feel sure that she'd look at her children and smile, knowing that she was still doing a good job.

I was woken in the early hours of this morning by Harry and Bear, his thread-bare and much loved companion.

“I can't sleep, Daddy,” he told me. He'd had a bad dream and still felt warm. He'd had a slight temperature at bedtime last night, and I'd given him some Calpol. I straightened my duvet and moved over, and he climbed into the double bed beside me. We turned the lights on, dimmed as low as they go, and snuggled down again.

He's pretty much the same this morning, warm brow-ed and lacking in his usual energy. He does seem happy sitting wrapped up with some juice watching Cbeebies, but he's definitely not himself as Emily can't interest him in helping her with a treasure hunt. She needs it though, as she's using a map Harry drew ages ago of a different house, so she's unlikely to find any treasure.

I'll have to see how he is later; he's meant to be going to a party dressed as a Red Indian, and Emily and I need to buy some food. I don't think any of us are going to make it though, so maybe I'll buzz a neighbour to watch them for half an hour while I restock.