Dad Up!: Long-Time Comedian. First-Time Father., Patterson Steve

Steve Patterson has been thinking about dad-dom for quite a while. In Dad Up he gives his all to be the best father possible to two young girls while imparting his hard-won wisdom and insights to readers everywhere.

The youngest of five boys growing up in an Irish Catholic household, Patterson mines his childhood for any sage advice he might have picked up from his own dad. He talks with candour about the difficulty he and his wife, Nancy, had conceiving, finding humour in their experiences with the fertility clinics automated phone calls (which Patterson calls RoboPimp) informing them when Nancy was ovulating. He chronicles the disappointment of failing to get pregnant, only to have the miracle conception take place in Regina during Grey Cup Week, under the guiding spirit of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and comedian Brent Butt (dont ask).

From that point on, Steve Patterson assumes full dad-mode, riffing on the biohazard that is changing a diaper, the absolute futility of stuffed animals, becoming a public breastfeeding warrior in the most unexpected of places, and how growing up a little boy in no way prepares you to being a father to little girls.