Pick Your Battles.....Sigh.

That has been my mantra in the almost-18 years I have been mothering. Or learning how to mother. Or crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

To be fair, the Queenager never argued about clothes, and will still wear whatever she puts her hand on first thing in the morning. (Rather funny - placing certain shirts at the very front to see if she'll come downstairs wearing them. She does.) The Man-Child wouldn't argue; he'd just put back whatever I'd put out and come down wearing a completely different outfit. Fortunately, because he didn't like wearing "smart clothes" (that is, spiffy clothes, to any US readers) most of his stuff could stand up to a school day. The Little Guy (a very verbal 7 year old) will argue the pros and cons of whatever I suggest but since it all looks the same anyway, I let him get on with it.

We've been pretty adamant about not allowing the teens to get strange piercings I'll admit. So would you if you could guarantee your kids would be the ones to get horribly infected AND you had to pay the health bills that we face over here. Our mantra for those situations is "When you're off the payroll". It also comes in handy for motor bike arguments, threats to go hang-gliding and other death-defying pursuits.

And up until now, we haven't had too many hair arguments. Not if you discard the faux-hawk that we had going a few years ago. Oh yes. Man-child, in a desperate bid to rebel against something, anything, got himself a faux-hawk. That's the one with the spike but the sides aren't all completely shaved off. It made him look very aggressive in my opinion, and it seemed that one female agreed as it was abruptly removed a few months later.

Two weeks ago he started banging on about wanting either a proper mohawk or blue hair. Blue Hair? Interestingly, I had more of a problem with the mohawk and the Ball & Chain vetoed the blue hair. Man-child dictated that it was one or the other, but I persuaded him to go and see the trendy Eurpean hair stylist round the corner who could give him something really rockin' with perhaps a touch of blue in it. (He eventually conceded that if his entire head was dyed blue he'd look like a Lego character.)

This past weekend he duly took himself off to the trendy hair stylist - who wasn't in. So he then took himself up to the punky barber shop. And got a mohawk.

It's not as bad as I thought it would look as you can see his huge eyes and he still has hair on the sides. A bit. And it'll grow.

What really upsets me however, is that for our 20th wedding anniversary, we decided to get a proper family photo portrait done. And it's booked for next week!

The photographer tells me she's a whizz with Photoshop! Sigh!

Expat Mum