My little teenager

The lie-ins have continued.  We nearly made it past 7am the other day, but at 6.58am the familiar cry of "Mama, come and get me", arose.

Unfortunately other teenaged behaviours are coming to the fore.  Everything we say is corrected us or wilfully disobeyed.  A recent example would be in reply to her mother remarking on the number of cars on the road, and then on how dark it was in the tunnel, "No, there's not traffic.  It's a beautiful day".  [You could say that wasn't the most stimulating conversation, but really, whatever gets us through the drive home].  Another when playing about with a crisp packet.  Me: ":Don't tip it upside down, Alice".  Alice: looks at me, turns away and shakes bag upside down until all crumbs come out.

"I don't want to..." is also pretty frequent when asked to do pretty much anything.  Yesterday she announced that, "I don't want to see it before", when reassured that something would be familiar.  So I'm assuming she's testing boundaries like kids do, but so far, as can be seen, her resistance has been pretty futile.

This morning she lapsed into sulky mono-syllables when we talked about what she might get up to today.

I'm surprised that I haven't had to start nagging her to tidy her room.  That'll be next.

One of my younger siblings seemed to enter the mood swings of puberty at around 8 years old.  Could Alice be about to break the family record?!