This round goes to the kid.

So anyway, about this journey we call *parenthood*.

At the moment I feel a bit like an all night-worker who also works the breakfast/lunch/dinner shift at the local cafe. Toast, milkshakes, five portions of vegetables per day, lunch, snacks, dinner, it is all a blur. In the midst of the sleep deprivation, and quite frankly - general confusion as to the day of the week/time/where I or my brood are supposed to be at any given time etc, I am learning that I/we are also supposed to have some kind of disciplinary/ethical/moral framework to raise our children within.

As small ones leave baby-hood, they become *people*, and as they are still quite new to the world, they need to be taught how to behave, or so the theory goes. Where I am a bit lost at the moment is on the matter of how in god's name my young lady learnt how to mis-behave without so much as a peep from any of us. She's got it down, straight up!

In the midst of pureeing something and boiling something else late in the day yesterday, I reached for a new tactic. The Behaviour Watch Board. I had no idea what I was doing. Anyway, it involves days of the week and happy and sad faces. The aim is to have more happy faces, as that equates to the predominance of good behaviour. Some kind of tallying exercise and active participation from all adults. Sounded good to me! Serious, yet not punitive. A chance for her to 'take ownership' of her own behaviour. (I really hate that expression, and recognise that my family and I are not on a reality TV program). I dropped the pumpkin, reached for the white board, put on my serious but not scary voice, and cobbled together some kind of chart-type creation.

Her response: "I want a sad face." "Mummy, I want a sad face now."

Goddamn her subversive tactics!

My stupid white board was to her passion for crime what the International Criminal Court is to a rogue state. Irrelevant. She refused to recognise its legitimacy. Therefore, it does not exist.

One day on, the only sad face is mine, as the crime wave continues unabated. The white board remains blank, and is in the distant recesses of whatever it was that happened yesterday.