Judgement day

Sunday: no longer the Lord's day, now a day of universal relaxing. But when The Boy and The Girl have been at Biological Dad's for the weekend - as they do on alternate weeks - it's a nerve-wracking day. The Chimps have been living with us for a year, but still when they come back from a weekend at Biological Dad's house they take a bit of time to settle in. There's the obvious reason: readjustment, but it goes a little deeper than that.

Despite only seeing them for four days a month and never calling in between - except the three or four times in a year, of course - Biological Dad doesn't pay The Chimps much attention when they're at his house. So often The Boy or The Girl have independently told us that he doesn't get up to give them breakfast, leaving them to help themselves to food in his cupboards. We've had wordswith Biological Dad about this. He says he'll get up, does it once, then goes back to his default setting of laziness again.

And from what The Chimps have both told us, his flatmate actually spends more time with them, even being the one to bandage up The Boy when he hurt his toe, while Biological Dad sat and talked to his new friends.

On top of that, he lets them stay up late to watch programmes like Lost and 24, needless to say that neither are suitable for a four-year-old or five-year-old. So, they come home tired, having nightmares, a bit confused, needing a lot of attention and full of the sweets he gives them to reduce the guilt he feels.

And that's the toughest thing about being a Biological Dad: constantly having to undo the bad work done by Biological Dad, being the one who has to dish out punishment while he's the one giving out sweets and all the while seeing two of the loveliest little people suffer.

PD