Count down

The boys' excitement is bubbling and frothing and fizzing out of their seams.

Charlie is practising Christmas morning - 5:30am sees him wide awake and bouncing into my bed before he remembers he hasn't checked the weather. I then get elbowed in the ribs and kicked in the shins before being blinded by the streetlight right outside my bedroom window and wait to hear the deflated "no snow AGAIN...".

Teddy is bleary, panda-eyed and clinging on to the magic he doesn't quite believe in but wants to. I believe for them - that way they can hold on to it to humour me at least.

I've been so excited about this Christmas that, until Teddy asked if I would like a lie-in on Christmas morning, it hadn't occurred to me that this is all new for the boys too: they don't remember a Christmas with me. I'm extra glad we have planned the day together and reinvented it for ourselves. It won't be anything grand - but it will be ours.

I'm away tomorrow for a long weekend away - the next time I see the boys after they leave for school, it will be Christmas Eve.

I'm fizzing too...