Dead hamsters, summer camps, and boyfriends in the basement

A long chat on the phone the other night with my youngest daughter Kitty, who was in surprisingly eloquent form. Very excited to tell me that she and her brother Joe had managed to play on the computer for five whole minutes without shouting at each other. Welcome news. If they even managed to stay in the same room together for five minutes without kicking lumps out of each other, it would be a substantial and significant step forward in the field of domestic harmony. When they're with me, I usually deliberately sit them apart - in the car for example, or at the dinner table - for the sake of everyone's sanity. This means my eldest daughter Orla has to sit between them and act as mediator. However, when they come over this summer, Kitty and Joe are coming first, Orla two weeks later. It could be a long fortnight if they spend it at each other's throats.

I tell Kitty I have a bone to pick with her. The last time I was in the US to visit them, we spent a lot of time playing with her new pet, a hamster. She seemed very attached to it, and had read up diligently on all the care and maintenance and the proper way to handle them, and so on. But Joe told me last week that the hamster had died - and died some time ago. Not a word about it from Kitty. I quiz her about it. "I haven't spoken to you since it died, daddy, so I couldn't tell you, could I?" she explains. She has, though. About  four times. "Oh," she says, "Well, it must just have slipped my mind." So presumably not as attached to deceased rodent as I'd thought, I guess. Bit sad I can't help her pick out a new one.

She's off to summer camp this week, and very excited about that. I'm still bemused by the idea of summer camp. I thought it was one of those things that kids only did in rubbish 70s movies and Snoopy. But no, they really do. They have to, really, given that the US summer holidays are ridiculously long - nearly three months. No half-terms, only a week at Christmas and Easter, but most of June and the whole of July and August are completely school-free. One of those strange idiosyncrasies of the American education system, like lockers and hall passes, grade averages and permanent records, homecoming balls and prom parties, cheerleading squads and glee clubs. I didn't really believe that they all existed either, until I visited my kids' schools and yes, they are just like Pretty In Pink or Saved By the Bell - well, a little bit like, anyway. Give or take the odd movie-star heartthrob and comedy geek.

I have a quick chat with Joe too, which pretty much runs along the lines of me asking him a question and him replying "yes" or "no" to, until I ask him how much time he's been spending on Facebook and he answers "yes". "You're watching TV rather than really talking to me, aren't you, Joe?" I ask. A guilty pause. "Yes." I let him go and ask to speak to Orla. "She's in the basement," says Joe, "I don't think she wants to be disturbed. She's with Steven."
Hmm. Who the hell is Steven? Why's he in the basement? And  why doesn't Orla want to be disturbed? I'd ask for answers on a postcard, but I'm not really sure I want to hear them.