Slowlearner

Well it's been an interesting few days. Mr Hairy and I were out on Saturday night with some friends and for the first time EVER, we thought we would trust the teenager and her brother on their own as we were local. Then the boy got himself invited to a sleepover and the teenager decided that she didn't want to be on her own, so we had to ship in a pal for her. All ended up OK and apart from the restaurant running out of Malbec, all was good.

I was out again last night, at a candle buying extraviganza, I didn't buy candles, but I did drink wine and eat mince pies, so a successful evening, until I got home that is.

Mr Hairy and the teenager were 'in discussion'. (I knew something was wrong when I came home to find them both in the same room...)

The teenager turns on me immediately, I am not ready, senses have been dulled by pastry and Shiraz. 'Why does the internet have to go off at 10pm?' (We have one of those Home Hub things that allows to you control the internet of different devices.)
"Well you go to bed a 10, so you don't need it on after that anyway."
"All my friends have internet on all the time."
"How do you know that?"
"Because they post and send messages and I can't see them til the morning."
"Well that is precisely why we turn it off at 10. We don't want you sending or responding to messages after then,"
"But all my friends do. I just want to be treated like my friends."
"Well everyone's circumstances are different. Perhaps they are not on the internet so much at other times. By 10 o'clock, you have had enough internet time."
Teenager, stomps off, slamming the door repeating the 'treated like my friends' statement.
I flick over to Live at the Apollo and enjoy Catherine Ryan. The Shiraz is doing it's job well.

At 10, I go up to the teenagers room, to find the teenager, lying in bed, face like thunder. My hair straighters, taken from my room earlier without permission, still sitting on her bedside cabinet. (The teenager is anal about people borrowing her stuff without asking...). "I asked you to return those to my room", I say. "Forgot", comes the reply. A single word loaded with so much hatred, it's impressive. I take the hair straighteners, her phone, wish her goodnight and go downstairs. My normal routine, is to plug her phone in for her, to charge overnight.

This morning I had to be up and out early for a doctors appointment to discuss menopause, coils and a weird skin thing on my side...FUN! I hear the teenager going downstairs before the dulcet tones ripple up the stairwell, "My phone's not been plugged in!"
"Really? Must have forgot."

I heard at a meeting today it takes 10,000 hours to be come expert at something. By my reckoning I have done over 122,000 hours of parenting.Why am I still so poor?