Thanks to a fan - The Foreward from A Rookie Parent by Andrew Voss (Shown here with Russell's permission):

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Taken from:

memoirs of a ROOKIE PARENT A whole new ball game by Andrew Voss (See July 3 News)

Foreword by Russell Crowe:

I got a call from Kerry Packer a week or two after my son was born.  He was ringing to congratulate us, Danielle and me, on having joined the parenthood club. He was obviously hosting a dinner party; the clinking and laughter in the background sang down the phone line. He asked me what I'd been doing.  As a matter of fact, I said, I've just changed Charlie's nappy and in a minute I'm going to bath him.  He said hold on a second, and he asked some muffled question of his dinner gusts.  When he came back on the line he said, 'I just asked the men at the table, parents every one, how many of them had ever changed a nappy?  Not a single one of them.  You've scored some big points with the women here, son.'

A month or so later I was talking to my father Alex, and I said to him that the joy of Charlie falling asleep on my chest was immeasurable and asked, could he remember cuddling me at the same age?  He looked a little sheepish for a moment and then replied, 'Not until you were much older.'  In his day, he said, it just wasn't done and no matter how willing he was, little babies were not male territory.

Times change, society's mores and values change, and these days you are rightly considered a dinosaur if you are not a hands-on dad.  I love my little boy and would do anything for him.  Nappies and the like are just the simplest tip of the iceburg.

No doubt Andrew's book will be full of tales of the unexpected; it goes with the territory.  I have to say though that I have managed to avoid the classic of being pissed on.  I'm sure he's taken deliberate aim a number of times, but the old man is just too quick for him.  Dani on the other hand, has been 'wounded' in action a number of times.

My favourite was on a boat off Queensland.  Charlie was 11 months old and already very mobile.  Dani had taken him into the cabin to bath him and laid him down on the crisp white Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed to take off his clothes.  Once he was naked, she had the overwhelming desire to cuddle his perfect little form.  Completely understandable; he, like all babies, is gorgeous.  Oh the warmth of a baby's cuddle!

Hold on, she thought.  That's warm and wet ... pulling away from him to discover he was unleashing a tidal wave.  In seconds they were both drenched.  So when he 'released' from the other side at the same time as he got out of her embrace, it made Charlie a particularly slippery customer as he crawled, pooed, rolled, pooed, stood, pooed, fell over and pooed, from one end of the Egyptian cotton to the other!

By the time I went to investigate what was taking so long, she had the baby bathed, bed stripped and remade, and was more than in the mood for a glass of wine on deck, where we both laughed hysterically at the joy of it all.

She's a good sport, my wife;  I think to be a parent you have to be.  I know Vossy is.

Enjoy the read.