What do they wash their face with?

When I was a teenager it was all cucumber facial peel masks and Twilight Teazer lipstick.  You only scrubbed your face if you happen to fall off your bike on to the road.  Skincare was just Witch Hazel or your Mum's Nivea or Oil of Ulay if you really wanted to go 'luxury.'  I wasn't sure what the jig was with puberty and boys, of course when I was 13 I never ever looked at a boy of my own age, they were juvenile and smelled of musty bottoms.  I was way ahead in the puberty steaks and would have been mortified is such a pubescent peasant even talked to me. 

No7 Twilight Teaser - 80's Must Have

So now having said 13 year old son I can see those girls in his year walking down this same path.  They look like mini super-models, all long legs and billowing hair, even I'm intimidated.  I had pretty good skin during my teenage years, not like some friends who were battered by the acne stick.  And how other kids were so deeply cruel, I remember tripping another girl up on purpose once because she had been so heart crunching vile to one of my friends whose skin was bad (that friend no longer has spots and looks younger than me now)  There is a ton of stuff for girls to use to wash their face, but not a lot for the teenage boys.  He just wants to wash his face, not burn off a layer with a medicated facial wash or scrub.  Plus washing your face with just soap is hardly worth it. 

Good skin care is in the same category as good general health and well being but I can't understand why the teenage girl skincare market is so well catered for but the teenage boy skincare market presumes they are all splattered with grease, spots and pimples.  Type in 'teenage skin washing' into Google and only pictures of girls come up.   So far he likes the Simple range because it just washes his face and it does not want to go to war in his epidermis.  The skincare giants of the world are definately missing a big boy shaped trick with this; L'Oreal have Hugh Lawrie and McDreamy advertsing men's skincare, but they late 40's early 50's.  What happens from the ages of 13 - 49?

Batteries and rechargers

My teenage son's life is all about the recharge.  The recharge for his iphone, his ipad, the recharge for his portable chargers and his batteries for his X-Box to be recharged, not to mention the sleep he needs to be recharged and not a narky swine.   Tori Spelling was rumoured to have a gift wrapping room in her Hollywood mansion, I need a re-charging room in my semi detached.

What makes me most crazy is when I schlep out of bed in the morning and flick on my cute little pink DAB radio only to hear silence as he's nicked the batteries, again.  I need a mix of Absolute 80's/Radio 5 Live to get me started in the morning.  We have two battery rechargers and several rechargeable batteries, to turn over from uncharged to charged should be simple, but seems like it just too much hassle to put empty batteries in to charge.  Much less hassle to piss Mum off first thing due to lack of Wham and a detailed weather forecast.  So i've painted four batteries with pink nail polish as a deterrent.  Will it work?  Who knows but it is worth the try, the mornings are getting darker and I need Andrew and George to help me.

Summer Hols

After the freedom of the Summer hols I always feel so mean shoving their free, brown, feral feet back into black leather school schools which according to my teen 'feel like bloody concrete blocks'  Said concrete blocks are a pair of sized 10 £85 Clarks men's shoes.  We've tried cheaper brands but they never last, they fall apart and are just plain crap in comparison; no Aldi alternatives when it comes to school shoes.

'Family time' is a much used bullshit phrase to try and make you feel guilty about not having Kodak/Ahh Bisto moments each week.  I'll tell you what family times means on holiday, it means two weeks of all being in the same room together because its cheaper!  This way you get to know each other more, inside and out, including yelling at each other to hurry up as you need the loo and being the only female in the household you can't just pee in a cup in the kitchen.

My boys made me laugh me head off as well as did my head in during our two weeks driving about France.  My teen held my hand in the midst of the biggest, wildest, loudest thunder and lightening storm I've ever seen.  He was laughing at me because I was genuinely scared, my boys were not, but I loved the fact he grabbed my hand to comfort me at the same time.  He did my head in because he was always hungry and he always wanted to be up, out and about doing something.  And for this I thank the international language of football, which on Ile De Re, he played with Italian, French and German boys each and every afternoon.  With some (literally) schoolboy German they all managed to communicate well enough to have a great time.  Even my 8 year old was in goal and was called 'De Gea' by his international team mates which made him beam from ear to ear.

We saw Notre Dame (13 yo -Mum, it's massive!)  went to the Louvre (8yo -Mum, why was everyone sad and naked in the olden days?) and looked at Anish Kapoors giant vagina art in Versailles (no comment from either child).  (Both - Can we have another Nutella crepe?)  When we got home I asked the boys which bit they liked the best and both unanimously said 'being at the very front of the car ferry on the way home when the ramp was put down in Dover and being first off the boat.'  Mechanics and engerneeering trumps thousands of years of arts and culture, so be it.
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