Banished

In fairy tales of yore princesses get banished to catles or towers distant. In greek mythology errant deities are sent to the underworld. In more recnt times political dissidents disappear to Siberia. On a lesser note it's not unheard of for people to be sent to Coventry.

After a truly miserable Easter the boy is being banished to Wales until the weekend. Hopefully the few days apart will enable us both to get our heads straight and everything back on an even keel. And at least Grandma in Wales will be truly delighted to share her 80th with both her grandchildren.

The boy was already in the doghouse after several conversations with the school had revealed a lack of commitment - not just with school work but with extra curricular activities including the swimming squad (dropping out when there were no immediate galas coming) and school play (lines not learnt by dress rehearsal. And this was crystalised by a poor school report.

For months there has been a plan to have professional portrait of the boy and his sister taken to give to his grandmother. This was set to be taken in Brighton which suited everyone. Last week it transpired the venue had shifted to Woodford. It didn't suit me as I'd prefer to spend the weekend in Brighton or his sister who had to drive two and a half hours to get there. As it was Saturday it had meant Good Friday was spent kicking our heels. I had reluctantly agreed that he could spend Saturday meeting his friends. It turned out this was his girlfriend and the long walk in the woods was certainly not focused on the dog they were supposed to be looking after.

Saturday pm, he announced he was planning to spend the next week helping friends with their revision. My eyebrows did a bit of a Roger Moore at that, and given the above, rather suspected thise wad just a way of seeing the girlfriend. His response was erm forthright, as indeed was mine. The upshot (at that point) was that it was his decision how he revised, I wouldn't tell him what to do, but he needed to be aware that IMHO it wouldn't lead to the good results he needed to get.

The boy has limited computer access to retrict time spent on MSN and prevent the viewing of in appropriate material. It transpired over the weekend that to get round the restrictions he had sneekily watched me log in to my laptop and had been using it when I was out.

I got barely a grunt of acknowledgement for the Easter egg I bought him and not even a creme egg in return...but then I did have to buy my own Christmas present.

Of course now I've put it all down it doesn't seem so bad; but then I've always thought of the blog as therapeutic. But in any case there are some trust issues, and my relaxed approach to parenting which has worked well in the past clearly needs significant modification now that boundaries are being stretched, challenged and broken. Can I have my little baby back please?