TEENAGE BOYS

My gorgeous 17 year old is off on study leave as from today.....which means, that bar a few exams here and there he is about to embark on the longest summer holiday ever. It's not fair.

He's been revising quite hard. I think. Although quite honestly it is hard to tell. He completely bogged up his mocks. Something happens in between him waking up late, eating, sleeping on the sofa, being a little bit loud and hyper (mainly as a result of recuperating from a shoulder operation and not being able to do any sport), going out with friends - I think it might be some revision; he goes quiet anyway and stares at incomprehensible bits of paper. But I can't be sure. There is no point in asking him because he either mumbles something unintelligible or shouts "OF COURSE I'M WORKING STOP HASSLING ME. ANYWAY, WHAT'S THE POINT OF IT ALL - WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?? WHY BOTHER?? I MEAN LOADS OF PEOPLE GET REALLY GOOD JOBS WHO GOT REALLY SHIT RESULTS LIKE, UM, ....YOU FOR EXAMPLE".

My job just seems to be to feed and water him and...well, thats it actually. Nothing else. Conversation doesn't really work. He came down wearing a new T-shirt the other day saying 'ALL MY EX'S ARE MARRIED" and although I tried to engage him in a discussion about what it meant, he claimed not to understand it himself. Frankly, I think it would look better on me.

He won "Manager's Player of The Year" at his football presentation night on Sunday evening. I was so proud. He's been playing in the same team for 10 years now and 7 out of the original 9 players are still together. One of the players has played over 250 games for the team. It's just lovely - they are such a close bunch of boys. They are all huge now. Secretly I was also proud of the fact that I got a special mention for helping them with their stretching and the manager awarded me "best backside award", although if he was comparing my arse to those teenage boys then I didn't have much competition - not quite so hairy at least, I imagine.

Yesterday though, I had one of those "AAAAGH" moments with him. My daughter suddenly shouted for me to come up to her room. "Look outside my window" she said. "There's a used condom on the roof" and sure enough she was right ("how does SHE know what a used condom looks like" I was thinking to myself). It's a flat roof that you can jump down on to and I therefore assumed that a couple had climbed out of her window during one of his infamous parties.

I had a friend in the garden wondering what we were doing peering out of the window. So I pointed to the offending article and mouthed the words "USED CONDOM" several times, but she couldn't understand what I was saying. After several attempts my daughter shouted at the top of her voice for all the neighbours to hear: "SHE SAYS WE'VE GOT A USED CONDOM ON OUR ROOF"

So I then instructed my son to climb out and get it amongst lots of "THAT IS COMPLETELY REVOLTING. WHO ON EARTH WAS THAT? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT BLA BLA BLA" and all he said was "mum, I have no idea who it was but it's a really good idea, I'm going to try it".

Of course my friend later pointed out that I was being ridiculous. Who in their right mind would creep into an uninhabited girly bedroom with a lovely squishy girly bed and climb out the window to have sex. Clearly they just chucked the incriminating evidence out of the window.

I can't tell my daughter that though as she would be horrified.

Sometimes I really don't like being a parent.

NO MORE PARTIES is the answer I think.