10:42
So much for our productive morning. Lily has just surfaced. I am at the kitchen table, engrossed in I Don’t Know How She Does It, thinking, I Don’t Know How I Do So Little. And still feel tired.
‘So what’s going on?’ asks Lily.
‘I’m just reading.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t meant to read at breakfast.’ She’s now sitting beside me in her nightie, spoiling for a conversation.
‘Well now you know how it feels to be completely ignored at breakfast.’
‘And now you know how it feels to be such a hypocrite.’ She stalks back upstairs.
About 20 minutes later, I go upstairs to find her sitting on her bed, still in her nightdress, staring into space, somehow rooted to the spot. Where does she get it from, I wonder?
18:20
Lily catches me looking into the middle distance, tapping my fingers, one by one, on my forehead.
‘What are you doing? Oh,’ she turns away dismissively, ‘a haiku.’
‘Hypocrite,’ she cries.
Hard to practise what you preach -
parent conundrum
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