December

December is a funny old month for us.

Alongside all the usual festivities we have a barrel load of family issues to deal with.

December is a month of birthdays (not just Jesus') and also marks the deaths of both my parents, so all the talk of family celebrations can really hit home.

I swing from Christmas love and festive cheer to a Scrooge like bitterness on a daily basis. Today as I listened to the radio I was suddenly gripped by a dreadful sense of envy as we listened to various celebrities telling us how they were dreading the trips back home to see their familes - for whatever comical reason, mum's cooking, dad's jokes etc etc and yet I was filled with a sense of sadness that we haven't got that family to go back to.

Of course we have Ed's family and they are amazing, but a Singapore Christmas just doesn't quite hit home for me (maybe that's my problem) and Ed would rather go home for Chinese New Year (which is completely understandable).

When we first adopted the boys we always said we would spend Christmas with my family and CNY with Ed's - so the boys had a sense of a cultural link with both families.

I wish the boys would have known my dad and they loved my mum, so at least they have memories - it was strange when we were Christmas shopping the other day, KC turned to me and said, 'The last time we were in this store was with Granny.' - the strangest things remind us.

We didn't tell KC that Granny died the day before his birthday - we saved the news until after, I don't know if that was a good idea - one day we will tell him the truth I guess.

So we go from anniversaries to birthdays.

KC has just turned 13 - and boy do we know it! He still hasn't got a school at the minute so I'm in the midst of battling the Local Authority to make sure he has a placement in the New Year - although that now seems unlikely as the council begin to break up for Christmas - honestly, our local authority seems to have more holidays than school!

But they now have placed a tutor with us and he is back in therapy - so we must count our blessings. Although sometimes I don't feel particulalrly blessed.

Still, TJ is doing well - he breaks up from school today and last night he went to his carol service - by himself - he was so proud of that! I had to stay home with KC, who is on self harm watch... more festive fun!

Next week marks the anniversary of my Dad's untimely death, he was only 53 and I am fast approaching the same age - as Papa keeps reminding me. I know he is only joking but it dos worry me. I'm now on a pre Christmas keep fit binge!(my goal is not to be asked to be Santa at next year's school fayre!!!!)

I do have incredibly fond memories of childhood Christmasses - big family events, parties with my cousins, all linked by grandparents, although they were inevitably organised by one of my industrious Aunts. We never had a house big enough to host everyone (or that was my Mum's excuse anyway).

Maybe I'm just over romanticising things - but I do worry that the boys won't have the same fond memories, just boring Christmasses at home with us.

I guess we have to create our own traditions.

Then we have the big day itself closely followed by my nephew's birthday on Boxing Day and TJ's birthday on the 28th - all before New Year kicks in.

It's Papa's bithday in January that marks the closure of the birth day/death anniversary mix up for us - and then we go into Chinese New Year - where we can hopefully, relax and enjoy a family event and the boys can enjoy being with their grandparents and Papa's family.

I want to focus on the positives, on the joys of Christmas but every now and then I have to stop and indulge in a little reminiscing, maybe as we get older that becomes the focus of this time of year.

I love Christmas but I dread December.

I miss my parents.

Santa!!!!!

I'm sure that there are many parents, particularly adoptive ones, who notice that as soon their little ones arrive that they begin to put on a small amount of weight.
My own narrative of my ever expanding waistline has given me many opportunities to write - usually with great comic abandon - after all, if we can't laugh at ourselves then...
But this week i really had to bite my own tongue as the lovely lady who runs the Friends group at our boys' school asked me if I would do the honour of being the school Santa this year - apparently they have a costume that will fit!
At first I was a little offended but soon took it in my stride. After all, I have been Santa before, but that was in Singapore where my main casting quality for the role was that I was caucasian rather than obese. There people laughed and said what a scrawny Santa I was - something tells me that won't happen this year.
Anyway, once I had accepted the situation I came home and asked my youngest if he wanted to go and see Santa at the school fair on Sunday.
He looked at me and laughed ( at first I thought he was going to tell me he didn't believe anymore) but no it was far worse...
"Don't be silly, Daddy," he said, "it's not the real Santa, it's just the fattest, stupidest teacher in school dressed up!"
I was gutted.
The my eldest son popped up. 'I think Daddy,' he said, ' That my Christmas list this year will just be one big thing that I want - obviously if 'Santa' is real then he will get me that one big thing - if not - well, I may have to break the news to TJ...'
So my youngest son sees me as a fat, stupid elf and my eldest sees the ability to blackmail based on the existence of said overweight elf
Needless to say that as soon as I told Papa about the entire episode I was placed on a very strict diet - no processed foods, reduced sugar, no alcohol (except at weekends - and then slimline) I negotiated that last bit...
Still...
It will soon be Christmas!

I blame the Prime Minister....

Well, it's been a while... but Christmas is now well and truly over.

The boys are back at school, Papa is back at work and I am back to normality. If normality includes having three Open University assignments to be completed and handed in within the next two weeks - trust me to choose to do three courses at once, I thought I was being productive...

Christmas was great fun in the end. I got the dreaded flu bug and was knocked off my feet for the first few days, then I handed the baton onto KC who in turn passed it onto his 91 year old Nan. That caused great concern but as Nan said, 'It'll take a lot more than a few germs to make her miss out on all the sherry!"

We all blame TJ, who in turn blames the prime minister. Let me elaborate.

Just before Christmas we were lucky enough to be invited to 10 Downing Street for the Children's Christmas Party, hosted by Edward Timpson, the children's minister. He mad a brief appearance towards the end, I think he felt safer if he let the parents have a few glasses of mulled wine before he showed up - although the lady I was chatting with was practically lying in wait so she could demand to know more about her children's adoption support. I wouldn't have crossed her, with or without mulled wine.

But, actually he was very pleasant, even though he looks about twelve. The boys had a great time, they met the 'real' Father Christmas (because as TJ told us, the Prime Minister wouldn't have a fake Father Christmas in his house) and watched the reindeer play in the garden. They met Paddington and one of the princesses from Frozen (I think that was who she was meant to be). Anyway they loved it and afterwards Papa and I decided we needed to eat some proper food - the canapes were lovely but incredibly small (austerity canapes?) -  although the boys filled up on sandwiiches and crisps. So we walked into Chinatown for dim sum. On the way TJ decided he didn't feel very well and by the time we got home he had a raging temperature - and so the flu came to visit our house - hence TJ blames the PM for our family illness. I'm sure Nanny would approve.

Apart from that Christmas was fun. We had my Mum, Granny down to stay along with her ASBO dog - which meant that the cat had to go to the cattery and our older dog spent most of the time hiding under the bed. the puupy loved ASBO though and the two of them spent the holiday period play fighting and generally getting up to no good.

Poor Granny still had a cough though, which I then got, followed by KC and then TJ. Poor Papa, at one point he resorted to watching the television with the subtitles turned on as he couldn't hear it over the noise of our 'hacking'.

But, all is back to normal now. The boys are still a bit stunned by the sudden going back to school - in fact they both look decidedly hung over each morning , as if they can't quite believe what is happening. Mum and ASBO have gone home and I have finally managed to get the house back to normal, although I imagine I will be finding pine needles well into August.

Next stop - Chinese New Year!

Carols, Coughs and Gas...

I hadn't planned to write this as today's blogpost - in fact I had almost forgotten about it and to be honest, I'm not actually supposed to be here. At this very moment I'm supposed to be sat in the school hall with three hundred other parents all desperate to get a look at our darling children as they murder some Christmas Carol or other - as you may remember from last year's post (or was it the year before) the school carol concert is usually quite comical - for all the wrong reasons. Instead of craning to see my 8 year old belting out While Shepherd's washed their socks (that never gets old) I get to see him close up as he sits on my lap coughing and sneezing... it really is quite unpleasant. Maybe I should have sent him to school and then I could see him coughing and sneezing from a distance - although that would be irresponsible as he would infect the rest of his class.

It wouldn't be so bad if KC wasn't at home as well. He broke up last week and has been driving me bonkers ever since - he's bored, there's nothing to do, can he watch TV?... again. Of course everything I suggest we do together is 'boring' - my ten year old has suddenly turned fifteen.

But last week we had a bit of a scare - I went into my eldest son's room and smelt something very strange. Odd smells are normal in a ten year old boy's room - I know this after sharing a room with my particularly smelly brother for many years - I, of course, smelled only of Giorgio Armani - the after shave of choice in 1985!

However, this smell was very strange - a sickly sweet odour that could only mean one thing - gas!

We recently had a lot of alterations to the house and most of them involved KC's room which is directly above the car port, where the main point for the gas is. I rushed downstairs and got the carbon monoxide monitor which immediately went off. We panicked.

I immediately opened all the windows and called the emergency gas number. I followed their instructions, turned off the gas at the mains, opened all the doors and waited for the gasman to come.

To be fair, he arrived within the hour, not bad for a Saturday afternoon, and came straight into KC's room. "I don't know what that smell is?" he said, "but I don't think it's gas. What worries me is that your carbon monoxide alarm keeps going off."

He took out his own monitor, it said everything was fine but, unfortunately for us, the gasman wasn't prepared to take any chances, and he had a flight to Tunisia to catch at 7pm (I know he told me... many times!) So he shut everything down and told me to call a gas repair man to check on the problem.

You try getting a gas repair man on a Saturday evening - it wasn't going to happen. So we were facing a weekend without heating or hot water.

Then I had a brainwave. I called the builder that did the work on the room. He immediately called his mate who did the plumbing and fitted in the radiators. He promised to be round straight away. As luck would have it, he lives around the corner from us.

So he came and checked everything out. There was no Carbon Monoxide and no gas leak. He checked our carbon alarm. It was dated 2009 and, as we were then told, after five years it would begin beeping to let us know that it needed to be changed. They only last for five years apparently. So that was why it had gone off - it just chose to go off when I placed it in KC's room.

But that didn't explain the strange gas-like smell - we were all puzzled. Then KC came into the room and immediately looked sheepish.

"What have you done?" I asked him.

"Well," he said, "You know that you told me to clean my rugby boots? Well, I did and then they were wet - so I put them on the radiator to dry - and I think that's what is making the smell."

I looked at the radiator which had now cooled and there on top was balanced a pair of rugby boots. I didn't need to smell them - we could all smell them, a strange mixture of over heated plastic and boy foot sweat... It's amazing that once you know what a smell is then you can pinpoint immediately where it is coming from.

The plumber howled. I sighed with relief. "Emergency over!" I laughed.

"Yes," agreed the plumber, " Now that'll be a £75 weekend call out fee," he laughed.

I didn't.

Christmas Cheers!

The problem with Christmas is that it seems to take ages to get here and then suddenly everything seems to happen at once - and at the same time! (not unlike the storm bomb that the UK is currently experiencing - such a great phrase, 'storm bomb' - it makes great headlines!)

Well, we are currently experiencing a Christmas bomb - I'm not sure how we are managing to fit everything in - in fact, sometimes I don't actually know which event I'm attending. I'm guessing this is how members of the royal family must feel - hurriedly moving from one mind numbingly boring event to the next, making small talk and shaking hands whilst simultaneously wondering if they remembered to set the Sky plus to record 'Casualty' - or perhaps thats just me.

Whilst having the boys in two separate schools has made life so much more bearable in many ways, it's at this time of year that it becomes manic. We have two of everything to attend - carol services, Christmas Fayres (both spelt with in a jaunty medievial fashion - in fact they both pretty much had exactly the same things on offer, although the posh school's one priced everything at double the state school.)

Actually, one really nice thing is that this has been the first year since the boys came to us that they both seem completely immersed in the whole Christmas experience. They wrote proper full-on 'lists' to Father Christmas - completely selfishly asking for everything they have ever seen on telelvision -and then adding a few more. Previously, we have taken a peek at their lists only to find them having barely anything on them - and never anything of value - as if they weren't worthy of asking for nice things. Last year KC asked for stuff for the pets as he 'didn't need anything'.

So I was heartened to see the 'full on' list.

I know it's hard, and I am in no way knocking foster carers, who do an amazing job, but Christmas must be so difficult when you have children in care living with you alongside your own family. For the boys they had an 'allowance' of £20 each from social services for the foster carrer to buy them a Christmas gift - they were with their final carers for 2 Christmases, and I know their foster carer bought more for them - but it can't be the same sitting with another family on Christmas morning and knowing, deep down, that you are not really a part of it. And I'm sure that the boys must have missed their birth families at that time - perhaps they still do, or rather they miss a memory of what they think it was like - fuelled by television shows. I do know that KC is very wary of people being drunk at this time of year.

However, I found out that TJ ripped his list up and decided to change it. He has decided only to put on the things he wants the most - so Santa will get him the right toy (a Nintendo 3DS). I know this because he told the hairdresser last night whilst he was having his hair cut. It was the first I had heard of it - luckily Santa is able to fulfil that wish.

KC, on the other hand, is on the cusp of 'getting it'. I think his list this year is a test - seeing just how much loot he can get if he 'still believes'. He has just turned 10 now - so he has already decided he is too old to actually see Santa, but he has agreed to go with his younger brother.

We put the Christmas tree up this week and as we did so I pulled out all the things they had made over the past few years. KC took one look and demanded that everything he had made be taken down as it was 'rubbish'. I know this is how he views himself. So I insisted that everything went on, despite his mumblings that he hated me, and a little later I spot him out of the corner of my eye just looking at everything he has made.

He is in a funny place - Christmas does that...

But tonight I shall be attending his end of term drama club play (he is worried he might have stage fright - he's a reindeer - but I've told him it doesn't matter, I'll be there anyway and I shall clap really loudly for him) and then we race straight over to the cathedral for KC's carol service - he is still angry that I signed him up to be in the choir, although he loves singing he didn't want to do it in front of everyone.. because, (yes you've guessed it) he's 'rubbish'. I've told him it doesn't matter I shall sing much louder than him anyway.

And where is Papa this evening whilst I am running from place to place? At his works Christmas party!!!! I miss those - actually going out to meet people and drink and have fun - and not talk about exam results or little Lucy's ballet classes (she's doing ever so well...)

Oh well - I'd better start practising 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' - something tells me I'll be belting it out a few times in the next week or so!

And just as we get school out of the way my mother will arrive - with her ASBO dog! (I've booked the cat into a cattery already - at least he will have a peaceful Christmas...

Christmas is Coming and Daddy's Getting Fat....

Or thats what I overheard this morning.

For my birthday this year Papa renewed my gym membership on the basis that I actually go - which seems a bit unfair.

But I have been very good and my American trainer from Hell (just outside of Dallas, Texas) has me on an interval programme - at first I was very excited as I thought it meant I got to have a break between each exercise and I took my flask of coffee and a Mars bar with me for just such an occassion - but I soon found out that's not what she meant at all!!!

I have to 'run' (well walk quickly) for 5 minutes and then sprint (bloody run!) for 30seconds flat out - before doing it all again - repeating for 30minutes!

This is to get my metabolic rate back up to standard apparently. Then after that she takes me round various weights and machines shouting at me - luckily its in American so I choose to ignore it and pretend I don't understand - which just makes her madder. I have to be careful though as she plays women's rugby.

Anyway, the boys are fascinated by this new health kick and keep checking if I am actually losing any weight and have a six pack yet. (I don't)

So this morning as I was doing breakfast I overheard them chatting.

"If we are really nice to Daddy and Papa we will get more Christmas presents," says the Sprog.
"Really?" TJ pipes up.
"Yup - thats what my teacher told me in school. That we have to be good and be nice to people," the Sprog went on, "So I'm going to tell Daddy how much smaller his tummy is."

TJ thought about this for a minute.

"But that would be lying," he said, And its bad to lie."

"Some lies are ok," The Sprog went on, "If they make people feel better - they are called white lies."

"Oh Ok," TJ agreed.

I stood in the kitchen deflated, not only at the schools apparent encouragement of lying in my kids but the fact that I wasn't looking any thinner. (Yes, its all about me!)

Then TJ popped his head over the kitchen counter.

"Daddy," he said.

"Yes," I replied, knowing what was coming next.

"You know when Papa says we have to rub your tummy for good luck like the buddha statue upstairs?"

Well I didn't expect that - and this was the first I was hearing of this good luck 'rub'.

"Well we wont be able to do that soon." And he gave me a big grin.

So he does think I am getting thinner - well thats how I am interpreting it!!!!!!!!! TJ is definately getting what he wants this Christmas - as for the Sprog..... well....

A Fear of Christmas...

Our youngest is beginning to panic...

He doesn't like Christmas. He just can't deal with it. It doesn't help that his birthday is also around the festive season.

School have told me he is becoming emotional and needy, crying all the time one minute then shouting the next. This morning I went in to find that he had been up most of the night eating blu tac... I know that as his posters simply fall off the wall. This is a sure sign that he is 'in a dark place.'

This is a throwback to his early days with us - where he would eat wall paper, blu tac - anything really that could fill the 'gap in his tummy' when he is lonely.

He isn't hungry, but he can't tell you why he needs to do this.

I sat him down this morning and we chatted about it before school. He sat in my lap, almost like a baby, and just lay there while we talked about Christmas and birthdays and... mummy... did I know she didn't feed him?

He has so few memories of his mum (I won't give herr the honour of having a capital letter), at least that's what we thought - but one thing he obviously does recall is the hunger - the hunger that led him and his brother to eat whatever was at hand.

I wonder if much of their time spent locked in a room was over the festive period - whilst the birth parents were out getting drunk and celebrating - their kids were locked in a room and forgotten about.

Its hard for school and other families to understand - after all, what child doesn't like Christmas and birthdays?.. But for TJ and the Sprog they are not associated with memories of fun and laughter... they are associated with drunkeness, domestic violence, starvation and being forgotten about - no wonder TJ dreads seeing the trees go up in shops or doesn't want to talk about 'what he wants for Christmas'.

The Sprog is coming through it - interesingly though he won't tell me anything that he wants as presents - but for him I think that is because that he simply doesn't think he is worth buying presents for - self esteem is such a big issue for him.

I don't want us to dread Christmas, as I know a lot of adoptive parents do from the various chat rooms etc, I want us to build our own traditions - so if our tree goes up later than everyone else's, or we don't make a huge fuss over toys and stuff then its not that we are being mean parents - we are just re-introducing Christmas to our children in a gentle way - so they can learn to love Christmas and know that it is a time of love and joy - not a time to fear....

Christmas 2

So after the festivities of the big day were done with we moved onto Boxing Day and the countdown to TJ's birthday, which is on the 28th. It's like one long party in our house!

KC went to his room and spent much of the day filming his own version of Batman versus Spider-Man whilst battling his giant gecko... It was actually quite imaginative and stood up to the four times he made us watch it. Grandpa and Grandma from Singapore sent over Skylanders Giants, a game for their Wii console... They loved it and spent the remainder of the evening playing it in the playroom whilst we adults fell out over the board game Frustration which my aunt sent for the children....it was actually great fun...

My aunt called on Boxing Day via the FaceTime thingy on the iPad... Also there was my Nan who is staying with my Aunt over the festive period. We all chatted about our Christmas so far. 'Did you all have a nice Christmas?' My aunt innocently asked, 'Yes, we did thank you... ' I was rudely cut off by my Mum who said, 'Well, you know who didnt have a nice Christmas don't you?' and then my Mum launched into a list of 'people who wouldn't be enjoying Christmas!' Namely my sister and her partner who have both come down with a viral infection, as has my nephew... And TJ was ill... Mum was relishing the tales... I could see my Aunt was trying to keep things jolly as Mum turned our joyful family Christmas into an feature length episode of Eastenders.... We soon said our goodbyes.... I say soon, it took about 10 minutes as my Mum, Aunt and near deaf Nan had a three way tussle over when Mum was returning home... I'm still not sure if its Sunday or Monday and she's staying with me....

ASBO dog has been ok this trip... She has only mauled my dog four or five times, barked at the Christmas wreath, tree, presents... Anything with the word Christmas in it really... She is not a festive hound. We sent the cat away for the week, although I think the cat was secretly pleased as he went into his cat box without a murmur, which is very unusual...

I may have been a bit full of a cold and may have lost a bit of Christmas spirit but I have to say this has been the best Christmas for years... Really lovely!

It's Christmas....

... and we all have the flu!!!!!

Well, I do - and thats all that counts! But despite my obvious illness I soldiered on - making the full Christmas dinner a la Nigella and steaming my own pudding (whilst I steamed my face at the same time!) Mother wanted me to 'put it in the microwave,' I think my Mum would microwave the entire Christmas dinner if she could.

This year was so much better than last - last year I got the norovirus after attending a Christingle service at a local church. I still think that the reason we all got sick there was that we partook of the coffee and mince pies dished out by the lovely member of the WI. One of whom used the same tea towel to mop out one cup before refilling it with coffee and serving it to someone else... namely me! Why can you never find a health and safety officer when you need one.

But this blog is not all about my health issues - it is also about the family Christmas that we enjoyed - this year, the children got excited about the advent countdown and waiting for the big red guy. Last year - they were really quiet - I dont think they knew what to expect from Christmas, but they more than made up for it this year. They went to bed late on Christmas Eve - I let them watch the Snowman and the Snowdog - big mistake!!! I cried from pretty much the beginning, KC worried that our dog was going to die and TJ was enthralled by the whole thing - I have never seen him sit in front of the TV in such a state of rapture - he loved it... and that made me cry too...

But off they went to bed in their new pyjamas - they needed to put new ones on so that they would be in their best clothes for Santa.

They were up next day and came rushing into our room with their stockings.... 'Can we open them?' was the uniform cry. We wiped the sleep from our eyes and away we went. I had barely enough time to get the recycling bag upstairs before the present opening frenzy began. (I am a little bit anal about the paper!!!)

They had just finished with Santa's gifts (KC got lots of things for his pet rabbit - he actually asked Santa for presents for his pets and TJ got the usual 6 year old requests of Moshi Monsters and anything Arsenal... not my fault!!!)

Then we got Granny up and had breakfast before moving onto round 2 - presents from family under the tree....

Lunch was a success (apart from my gravy which was foul - but luckily God gave us Bisto...) and afterwards we settled down to the usual family Christmas - board games, TV and alcohol... fantastic.

I know there have been complaints about my not keeping on top of the blog - forgive me... there will still be updates but they will be intermittent I'm afraid... children do that to you...

Flu....

Yesterday TJ came down with Child Flu - its the boy version of manflu - he had it bad. He woke up at about 2am and then continued waking up on the hour throughout the night. Great fun.

Papa and I took it in turns on that first night - I did 4 times and Papa did 1! Just the one - he had work next day and I only have to study, write, organise a family Christmas and two children to care for. I should have realised!

Yesterday I set out all the Christmas menus and got online to do the shopping. Only 4 delivery slots left! I went through my itemised list and had bought nearly everything I needed when I looked at the clock - I had forgotten about KC - he was still at school... and school had finished 10 minutes ago - my heart raced. I ran out of the door telling TJ to stay in bed, I would be 5 minutes. As I ran the computer beeped - I looked back - 'You have 5 minutes before you lose your delivery slot' it said. Bugger!!!!! Food or kid???? Which should I do? I opted for the child - who I envisaged as stood outside the school gate alone and crying. I ran to school - no, I literally ran! I got there to find no KC... What was going on? I went into the school yard to see KC and 4 friends playing football with a teacher. 'Daddy!' he cried, 'You came!'. The teacher looked at me disapprovingly. 'I'm so sorry,' I said, 'TJ is at home sick and I have to get back.' I hope the teacher believed me as I grabbed KC and he waved goodbye to the other 'forgotten' children. My name is now probably on a 'list' somewhere in the staff room...

We ran in through the front door - I raced to the computer as it flashed up - 'Your designated time has now been lost - please log on again to rebook a delivery slot.' Even the computer was admonishing me!

I logged back on to find all the delivery slots over Christmas had now gone - I have £120 worth of shopping in my trolley and nowhere to send it to - unless I wanted it on Dec 28th, which defeated the object of shopping early! I put my head in my hands knowing I was now destined to have to go to Sainsbury's on Christmas Eve as the weekend before I am up in Cheshire collecting my mother and the ASBO dog for the Christmas break. Then suddenly a slot flashed up as available. Obviously, another sap had gone somewhere else and missed their 'designated shopping time.' I booked it - 7am on Saturday - but I don't care. We can get the shopping put away and I'll then head up to Mum, its going to take me all day to get there anyway. I breathed a sigh of relief and then the screen froze when I was paying... Is it really worth it??????? I cried for a while and then called the Customer Services Department. It helped that TJ was crying next to the phone. The Customer Services lady was lovely - took my card details and even gave me a voucher code to save on the delivery cost - which is £10 for the festive period!!!!!

So I am all ready - I hope.....

On a positive note - my insurance will cover the damage to TJ's teacher's car!!!!! And I wont lose my no-claims and, even better news, as I am not claiming for my car I don't even have to pay any excess... Honesty was the best policy. The chap at the insurance company was very impressed that I had left my details when the car was unattended... apparently most people don't, which I find shocking... I didn't tell him it was TJ's teacher I hit....

Last night Papa agreed to take turns watching TJ if he woke up in the night. Of course he did - beginning at 2.30am... 'Your turn,' I whispered in Papa's ear... I won't tell you what he said but the second word was 'off!' Charming. Needless to say 'sharing' the night time duties involved me getting up on the hour every hour - so as I type this I am slightly cross eyed!

Today is KC's Carol Concert - I didnt think I would be able to go but my lovely adorable and slightly mad Turkish cleaner has agreed to watch TJ while I go to the school. Bless her!!!! She definately deserves a bonus!!!!!!

Visiting Father Christmas...

What a lovely weekend.

We had arranged to go to Lapland with our very dear friends and their children - not the real Lapland, but Lapland UK - which is just outside of Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Not quite as exotic but every bit as magical.

We were hurrying out of our drive - all packed in with Christmas music on the stereo. I reversed out of our drive and suddenly heard a 'crunch'. "What was that?" Papa exclaimed. My heart sank. In our excitement to get out I had failed to notice the car parked over the road from me and had gone straight into the side of a blue Ford Focus. We got out to inspect the damage. Luckily there wasn't even a scratch on our car. Then I turned to look at the Ford. The area above the wheel had just crumpled. I stared at it. Then the evil little voice inside my head said 'No-one saw - jump in and drive off." I was about to listen to my good little voice who would probably contradict this argumment when a real little voice piped up from the backseats, "That's my teacher's car." I turned slowly to look at TJ. "It is," he said, "that's Mrs P's car - she parked there earlier - I saw her and waved." We were caught red handed. I couldn't even contemplate doing a runner now (not that I would have I hasten to add - it was just a momentary blip). So I called TJ's teacher - who I work with on the PTA. She came down to see me. Luckily she was very good about it and more surprised about the amount of damage done to her car and none to mine. But we exchanged details and left with a clear consicence and our heads held high... whilst Papa complained about our losing our no claims bonus now...

Off to Lapland!!!!!

It was fantastic - the children all made teddy bears with the elves and then gingerbread men with mother Christmas before we were given free time to explore the 'Winter Wonderland' - which included ice skating, writing and posting letters at Santa's post office and eating very expensive sausages before going round the gift shop to spend our elf 'jingles' - real money isn't used in Lapland - oddly enough all major credit cards are accepted though. Either way the kids were all massively hyped up to see the big man. We were collected by our elf guide and led through the winding, snow covered forest where the elf taught the children how to listen to the trees to find out which road took us to Santa. They turned up at Father Christmas's log cabin and in they went to see him. Both KC and TJ went last year - but this year we are repeating everything as last year they just didn't know how to deal with Christmas at all. All of our customs were new to them. As TJ exclaimed when he saw the Christmas tree - 'It's the same decorations as last year!' At first I thought he was disappointed but then I realised in his short life he had already been to many houses for different Christmas's. Of course we have moved house as well this year - so it was reassuring for him to see that although we had moved our Christmas would still be the same and Santa would still visit.

The children each sat down next to Father Christmas and told him what they wanted. 'Just one thing.' Father Christmas (one of the best I have seen) wisely said before the boys gave him a list. KC opted for a toy elf - which luckily arrived last week from the USA whilst TJ asked for a new Arsenal kit - which Granny has already got him. Then he added 'with a number 12 on the back!' "Of course I can do that!' Santa exclaimed. I looked at Papa. in TJ's letter to Santa he said a kit with a number 11 on the back - what was this sudden change to 12 about. Bugger! And Mum has already bought the kit. We spent most of the way home 'bigging up' the number 11... Now Papa and I will have to find out who number 11 actually is! Unfortunately, I have taken a little bit of a shine to the football player who is No 12 and encouraged TJ to put some lovely posters of the rather good looking chap on his wall - so it maybe that I am to blame - just don't tell Papa!!!!!!!!

They came home clutching the toy huskies Santa had given them exhausted but incredibly happy.. I think this is probably KC's final year of truly believing - and not just faking it to make sure he gets his haul of presents... and it was lovely to watch his face light up - especially when he looked at Santa's Good List to see how Santa knew so much about him - to see that the book had no writing on it at all - just magic writing only Santa could read. An excellent touch and how Santa knew all that information about the kids I do not know... well, I do but the children don't!!!!!!!