Nobody said it was easy being a teenager
It only seems like yesterday that I was changing his nappies, but this weekend Gabriel must choose his GCSE options.
He's struggling to decide which one of three remaining subjects will fill his last choice.
His mother and I feel quite helpless. We'd like to guide him to the subject we both think he should take, but believe that it should be his choice. And his alone.
It's an important task for a 13-year-old as I guess it's the first sketchings of a path to his future. He is basing his options on what he'd like to be at the moment – a lawyer.
If I'm anything to go by he'll change his mind three of four times by the time he enters the world of work, but you have to start somewhere.
Gabriel is a thinker so is taking the process extremely seriously. He's chatting through the issues with his teachers and is desperately keen to know what we think. Which makes it even harder to keep our own counsel.
Nobody said it was easy being a teenager.
I was a self-conscious 16-year-old when I first started to wear glasses.
I hated wearing them, but had little choice. I could hardly see the blackboard at school and the more I wore them the more dependent I became.
My wife – an optometrist – started to notice that Isaac's eyes were deteriorating a few months ago. It was a whiteboard rather than a blackboard he was struggling with, however. He started wearing spectacles at the beginning of the summer and I'm pleased to say they suit him.
The problem with Isaac is not getting him to wear them, it's getting him to remember where he put them.
He's such a busy lad that he's forever taking them off, putting them down and then forgetting where he's put them.
He now has a pair for school, a pair for home and a pair for his ju-jitsu bag. And he still asks for help in finding a pair of glasses to watch the telly.
Easter is fast approaching and the battle of the lawnmower is about to begin.
When I was a teenager one of my weekly chores was mowing the lawn. My hatred of cutting the grass has not lessened since then, and as my father did to me, so I try to do to my sons.
Only they're far more cunning than I ever was.
My excuses for not mowing the lawn invariably failed, whereas I normally find myself accepting that neither of my sons could possibly cut the grass for whatever reason they've concocted.
This year it's going to be different. This year I'm going to be tougher. They will cut the grass. They will ...
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Weather for Sunderland
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 19 C
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Tomorrow
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Temperature: 8 C to 18 C
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