A couple of weeks ago Gabba and I decided we'd stop Sarah going to guitar lessons as it didn't appear to us that she was all that interested. At $144 a term it was a lot of money for her to not learn how to play the guitar. Tonight when it finally dawned on her we got a small insight into the future of having teenage daughters will be like.

First there was tears and then screaming and then a brief period of collapsing on the floor in grief and then pleading followed quickly by begging. Then there was more screaming and foot stomping. I find the foot stomping thing funny, but when I laugh it makes her even more angry. After the stomping was more crying and and then sobbing into the couch. there was a very brief bit of laughing when I made some very good points that she agreed with, but then, back to the crying and pleading. Jeez, you'd think her very life depending on knowing how to play a freakin guitar.

She's at the age now where we can explain the issues and she grasps them for the most part. Explaining the $144 a term and the $600 a year makes sense to her, but the fact she wasn't practising at all didn't mean she should stop. The problem with trying to negotiate a deal after her having a spaz, is to make it look like we didn't actually give in to a tantrum. Parenting is bloody hard. I guess thats why my mother's idiot ex-husband couldn't do it very well. He was after all not a very smart man.

In the end we negotiated the above contract, which means tomorrow I have to write a cheque for $144. The macro lens I have been lusting after for a couple of months sails gently back over the horizon out of sight for another month.