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.