Recently I found myself waking up and questioning the very essence of life itself.

Did I have eyebrows? Did everyone have eyebrows? And what was a zebra?

In my haze I started panicking at the discovery that I did have eyebrows and, as my heart started racing, I wasn't sure what to do about this evolving situation, but then it hit me.

A quick backhander from my wife knocked my train of thought back on track, and cleared the remnant haze from the cheap but deliciously necessary fermented grape drink I call "fatherhood juice".

It was just my little Miss Five, who for the past three weeks has been in a swirling, delirious stupor of excitement, happiness and debilitating exhaustion after taking the first step in one of life's great trials: big school.

A week after announcing to the world at 2am that she did indeed have eyebrows, Miss Five woke the house again suffering from a David Attenboroughesque nightmare. 

"What is a zebra?" she bellowed. 

"What. is. a. zebra? I don't know what a zebra is anymore," she wailed.

Of course, she does know. A zebra is a unicorn's ugly cousin. But as my wife went to her aid, the plot thickened even further.

"I don't know what a tiger is ... Oh no ... I don't know what a tiger is," she said in between sobs.

Once again, in my fatherly haze, I questioned if I knew. 

It was just days after being stumped when Miss Five "forgot how to sleep" and asked me to explain how it works (and at this point, without fatherhood juice, it's anyone's guess).

Fortunately her zoological knowledge returned, and we almost got a full hour's sleep before Mr 18 Months woke up for no other reason than to lie next to me and, with the precision of a Swiss timepiece I will never afford, slap me on the back every four seconds for the next three hours.

This is fatherhood. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Chris Bath is an ACM journalist