Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.......

Mondays are an odd day. For one, it is the re-engagement with the working week (for me at least), with all that entails. I'll bore you some other time with work stories. It is also the day that I 'pop-in' on the kids.

How we, that is my ex and I, came to this arrangement I'm not sure. The Geeks homework has something to do with it I know, but it has now become a regular thing, even if he doesn't need my 'help'.

I'm lucky in the respect that, there are little or in fact, no restrictions to access as far as the children are concerned. My separated other (I'll find a better name for her, she deserves that at the very least) believes strongly that Children need their fathers. There are no formal arrangements in place and we try to work with each other making sure that if one of us isn't available at the end of a day or over a weekend, the other will be there to tend to their many and varying needs.

Tonight's visit consisted of an hour sat chatting to the boys while we waited for Miss Feisty to return from the hairdressers. The Dude looks like he hasn't showered all weekend, nothing unusual there. While the Geek appears more concerned with various gig tickets and CD's he has acquired than his photography coursework. Although my relationship with his Mother is fine, I can see his detiorating rapidly if he doesn't pull his finger out. Another unwritten rule is, she deals with the photography while I work on the Film studies and music. Our chosen 'specialist subjects'.

Miss Feisty has had her hair shorn. Think Agyness Deyn (if you know her?) and you're almost all the way there.Its quite a major departure from the head of straightened curls she has been sporting of late and my suspicion is that such a drastic change is in lieu of the piercing she wants, but her mother doesn't. More trouble afoot methinks....

We talked over their regular Wednesday night visit to me. Bolagnese was offered and accepted and with it, the ritual of 'dippy bread'. This consists of tearing off hunks of crusty bread and dipping it into the bubbling sauce, pre-meal.
It features ever so momentarily in The Godfather, a film I love and now, my children do too. We even quote lines from the movie to each other when in the mood. Its one of those small, almost imperceptible habits you form. It has always been 'my thing' with the kids. I love the feeling of being gathered around the pot, chatting about everything and nothing, the detritus of all our days being sloughed off. It also allows me to play the patriarch.One I'm sure my friends, let alone my kids would recognise well!

I'm glad we have been able to sustain these small rituals, they ground me and bind us together. They give at least a semblance of stability to the fractured life my children are coping with.

I just wonder how The Mafia cope with bad sloppy personal hygiene, rebellious daughters and undone homework?

Anyone wanna make me an offer I can't refuse......