Teenagers and tantrums

William's 13th birthday passed without incident yesterday and was actually, as he himself put it, 'the best birthday I've ever had where it's been a school day." We're still coming to terms with being the parents of a teenager.

Will is great. Of course he has the odd strop (don't we all?) but on the whole he's pretty awesome. Very much his own man. Will is also very like me in a lot of ways, particularly when it comes to the forgetful, ditzy side that he has. Reminds me of me in the; 'my dog ate my homework'* stage I went through at about his age. I've warned him already that this may be a stage that never goes away...it hasn't for me anyway.

As for Number Two. He claims to be 'exhausted' at all times, having been awake apparently for hours on end every night. I don't believe him. Today we were supposed to be going to cricket nets, which I knew he didn't want to try. To add insult to injury, I had to go a call 4pm - 5pm unexpectedly, which meant James had to stay for Prep Club and then 10 minutes of Aftercare. I picked him up at 5.15pm, bearing conciliatory coffee cake, but the tears and recriminations about having been collected late, made to do Prep at school and then being forced to go to nets was an Oscar-winning performance.

I nearly fell for it.

I wrestled my weeping, exhausted son to St Barts only to find that bloody nets wasn't on after all. James instantly transformed from gibbering, weeping wreck, to smiley; 'what's for dinner and can I have a bath," rosy-cheeked angel. It appals me that he has gone to those lengths to try and get out of an hours cricket. "What if you were genuinely ill or hurt? How would we be able to tell the difference?" I yelled at him. "Sorry," came the unrepentant reply.

He's in the bath. But going to bed early - and NOT watching Tomb Raider.

*She did! Our German Shepherd Volly gnawed off the front cover of my Chemistry book in about 1985. I got seriously told off for coming into class without any prep and a half-chewed text book.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turkish Delight will get you a long way

It's roasting today, 30 degrees plus, and I've been up to Argos to buy the boys a cheap two man tent so they can go out later, build a fire at the back of the garden and camp out for the night. We've got frankfurters and rolls, bananas to roast in foil and Nutella to go with them. But no marshmallows. As we all know, no camp is complete without toasting marshmallows, so with the dual purpose of finding some, and collecting Pokemon, the boys set off on their scooters on a search for marshmallows. They had no luck at Brummell Road or the Co-Op, and a tomato-faced William came home empty handed while James continued on to Waitrose for a last try. He finally came home twenty minutes later, bright red and clutching a packet of heart-shaped marshmallows. Stomping past Dolly and I he announced "Got them on the house. They couldn't find the ones I wanted, so they gave these to me on the house." A pause as he rummaged in his pocket and I digested this incredible ...
Read more

Lunch breaks and baking cakes

It's James' birthday on Monday, but he's got his mates round tomorrow and he wants to have his birthday cake then, so they can all sing Happy Birthday and take a slice home. All well and good. Apart from the fact that I have back-to-back calls pretty much all day, and friends round for dinner. AND, I refuse to buy one. With an hour between calls it has just been possible to wolf down a fish finger sandwich (using the thinnest of slices, Eddie having eaten the rest of the loaf while I was on my previous call), mix up a chocolate Victoria sponge and get it in the oven. Icing I can sort out later. Then I wondered, as I often do, whether it would ever occur to a man to take his lunch break to bake a birthday cake. And whether high-achieving women would just go and buy one because they were focused on work and couldn't spare the time. And whether it is career limiting to spend time baking cakes when you could be working through your lunch hour. Yesterday on a call we w...
Read more

Sourdough-off

Image
Time to teach the boys to make sourdough. This is going to be an excellent project - from start(er) to finish. They have to write down the instructions each step of the considerable way and I hope at the end when they bake their loaves they'll have the same sense of achievement that I feel whenever I manage to bake a sourdough successfully (which to be honest, isn't often, but still...). Today is bake day. Will's first out of the traps as James is away on a sleepover and not back until after lunch. We were a bit worried William's starter had died yesterday as it developed an ominous layer of fluid on the top, but after school drop off I drained the fluid and gave it a stir and by this morning it had recovered so much it had actually bowed the top of its tupperware up. We poured in into lukewarm water and it floated beautifully. Mine NEVER does that. #sourdoughenvy.  This is the recipe we're using - so far it hasn't failed me.  https://www.rivercottag...
Read more