Friday night...

Jessica was out at the theatre with her class so it was just the three of us for dinner.

We decided to have Japanese (sushi) as it works out so much cheaper with just the three of us.

I went to go rent a DVD, as usual, and we had even agreed on two possibilities before I left: Mr. and Mrs. Smith or La Marche de l'empereur. Neither was available. All of the copies of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were already rented and La Marche de l'Empereur wasn't on their list of DVDs for rent. I therefore stood outside in the rain, under a cover, on my mobile phone in front of the DVD machine reading off the DVDs which were available. After quite some time we finally decided that there were no DVDs which were available which we were either interested in or could agree to.

I came home and we let Alex decide out of the DVDs we already own. Her choice was actually quite predictable. The newest member of the Daniel Radcliffe Fan Club chose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It may very well have been the first or at the most second time Desney had seen it. It was at the least the second or third time I had seen it. However it was at least the fifth time Alexandra had seen it and she was, rather annoyingly, telling us what was going to happen next throughout the movie.

As Alex had school the next day she was supposed to go right to bed after the movie ended... This did not happen, as usual, and after much yelling and screaming things finally quieted down. We had to take her Harry Potter book away from her, as usual, or she would have been reading in bed with a flashlight until all hours.

In recent days her room has been stripped of more and more distracting objects: even though I turn off the Internet access on both of the girls' computers at night Alexandra would be playing Sims on her computer non-stop so finally her computer was confiscated; her mobile phone was confiscated as she had been making calls late at night from bed and had also been using it as a flashlight to read with (!); her stereo was then confiscated, by Desney, as she was playing it so loud and so often that she couldn't hear when she was being called or spoken to.

This may all sound quite strict to those of you with issues as regards confiscating childrens' possessions as punishment. However I can assure you that even with this reduced quantity of technological equipment, constantly referred to as "useless expensive gadgets" by my beloved wife, Alexandra was still able to live a full life and most certainly still able to maintain a most definitely rebellious mischief level.

Late in the evening Jessica finally arrived home with a friend who was staying over for the night...