Adolescence has a lot to answer for.

Living with a teenage woman is like living with Hagrid's dog 'Fluffy'... I'd like to approach her and give her belly a rub but she scares the hell out of me... So I think I'll just throw her scraps of food from a safe distance and not mention anything controversial (like 'chores', 'friends', her brother and any phrase beginning in 'Will you just....'). Controversy or 'winding her up' in 'teen-speak', tends to result in slight foaming at the mouth accompanied by extreme flapping of the arms while jumping up and down and screaming - Animal from 'The Muppets' with rabies. Now, I love her to bits, but it's very hard to relax around her - you just never know when those raging hormones will kick in and, being a wheelchair user - it' s very hard for me to retreat quickly to a safe distance, so I've taken to wearing a crash helmet, safety goggles and a fat suit for protection.

Despite her hormonal troughs (which bewilder her more than me..), she is, and always will be, my beautiful girl. In good times I see the woman she is turning into; kind, clever, confident, sassy and strong. Adolescence has a lot to answer for. Sometimes I worry that our relationship is dying, then she will bring it back to life by being so incredibly nice - today at high school she had to write about someone who was her hero - and she wrote about me.
I grieve her growing up, I remember tickling her, playing with her, just being with her as a toddler and I feel physical pain that she's growing up into womanhood. But she has to. I have to be there to help her make the scary transition. And I will. She will probably never know how much I love her until she has children of her own, and if she does I will tell her to make the most of those precious years because they will be the memories which will help you get through the difficult times later.

Let's be bad and have fun!

Parents' Evenings...sigh. As if I don't feel guilty enough - I now have to stand over my children with a bible in one hand and a whip in the other threatening hell and damnation if study is not seen to be done. I had to sign a contract promising the school to turn my teenage twins into Stepford children so that the teachers' lives could become more pleasant at work. All the parents had to, it wasn't just me, we had no choice. No-one was going to openly defy the teacher, as we all sat at individual desks, sweating. Some swatty parents had brought their own paper and pen - taking down important points and dates, chewing the end of the pen and nodding knowingly as Sir said something about holidays not being holidays but instead; 'opportunities for study'... Great... I got the distinct impression that spontaneous and carefree family days out were gone. Is this really how it is when your kids are teenagers? My shoulders and head drooped under the weight of how to happily balance all of our lives when Sir produced the contract for us to sign... I perked up... unlike the good parents - I didn't have a pen, although I had poked at my finger with a paper clip so I could scrawl down the Christmas holiday dates in blood on the back of an old till receipt. No pen = can't sign = get out of burdening pressure = hurray, let's all go out and be silly. Then Sir produced, from the ether, a bag of spare pens for the bad parents who obviously don't take these things seriously enough. Damn... Have pen = have to sign = have to be a strict and serious parent = conflict = stress = buy more chocolate and meditation tapes to avoid hiding in box for rest of life.
Well, I told the kids I had to sign a contract and that if they break it - I'll go to prison... I wagged my sceptic finger at them (from the paper clip) which seemed to give me more credibility. They're studying quietly now, but they're not stupid - they'll work out I'm lying, then I'll just have to resort to plan B...which involves a pan pipes cd, a stash of Curly Wurlys and a large box.