Shattered

The Chimps have been off school today for a teachers' training day, so Mum has been working from home to look after them. But not even a full day's work compares to just the two-and-a-half hours of Chimp time since I came home.

After a trip to the park we let The Chimps watch Ice Age, but The Boy can't just watch a film. Heavens no. He has to ask questions about every little detail. Who's that? Why's he doing that? Is that man he's fighting his friend? Why isn't that man his friend? Agghhhh. I hadn't even been watching the simple-as-piss plot about a crotchedy loner becoming friends with a social outcast, how the hell should I know?!?

Getting them to eat tea was like trying to convince George Bush that simulating fellatio on Vladimar Putin live on Fox News would be good for his image, but we stood our ground when it mattered and conceeded when it would have been vicious to have continued.

Finally, after what seemed like six years hard graft in a Russian POW camp they've finally gone to bed. And I'm shattered.

PD

The irony is delicious

Well, Biological Dad dropped The Chimps off and told Mum that The Boy needed new shoes in a very patronising way. Needless to say we don't need parenting advice from a man who drops The Chimps off still wearing the same socks they were dropped off in on Friday.

Thankfully, they seem better than they usually are after they've spent time at his. So far, at least. Although The Girl did ask him to phone her more - well, more than the four times in one year, at least. His reply: I can't, because I have to work really late and then I'm on the bus. His career? A 9-5 call monkey in a customer services centre.

He really does care too much.

PD

Real Dad manages to text with his fat fingers

Just had a text from Biological Dad saying that he's bringing The Chimps back and that they've had sandwiches for lunch. Apparently this means they need a HOT meal. As everyone knows, HOT is a nutritional food group, which has many benefits over the COLD group, which is why burger and chips is a better meal than a buffet that includes the right amount of fruit and veg to give them their five a day.

As annoying as the comment and suggestion that we're incapable of knowing how to feed a child is, it's made worse by the fact that Biological Dad is clinically obese, has on more than one occasion taken The Chimps to McDonalds for breakfast, lunch and dinner - well, at least it's HOT food - and that Mum is actually a diet expert who writes extensively on nutrition.

It boggles the mind.

PD

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