On Christmas Eve the puppy is found in The Teenager’s bedroom eating chocolate.  Around six bars are missing, presumed consumed. Half an hour later she returns the chocolate, in the back garden, in an enormous puking spree.

You are grateful for small mercies when your children wake you at 7am to open their presents.  Even more so when you get a text from Teacher Friend, Mother of 3 saying that her eldest woke at 2.45am.

The 7 year opened her smallest present first, and on discovering a much wanted ipod shuffle declared it the best Christmas ever.

You wonder how it is possible that you only had to untie/cut and hack one present out of it’s box, for the children, with it’s ridiculous ties.  You consider contacting The Guinness World Records to see if you qualify for an entry in the 2012 book.

When Gramps and my Stepmum arrive bearing gifts on Christmas morning, the 5 year old, rather rudely ignores his present of an army tank and action man.  I thought he was being ungrateful, it turns out he was suffering present fatigue.  Later at bedtime he sleeps with his tank next to his pillow and a rather disgruntled looking Action Man in his arms.

The six foot folding slate bed pool/snooker table, that Father Christmas bought from ebay for £30, was a fantastic purchase.  Set up in the playroom  people play throughout the day.  At one point all 14 members of the Christmas Dinner party were in there.

I  discover that the 5 year old thinks that Bono and Sting’s classic ‘Feed The World’ song is actually ‘Beaver World’.  It tickles me all day making the fact that the CD is on repeat all day more bearable.

Every year Grandma makes a trifle. This year she arrives with a half formed trifle because there had been ‘A Great Custard Shortage’. I’m sure you must have heard about it because we all did.  We manage to rib Grandma about the custard shortage for the remainder of the day.

It only takes four hours for a 5 year old to be irreversibly addicted to an XBOX.

Someone gives the 5 year old a Vuvuzela as a gift.  I am yet to find out who it was.  It was a stealth gift from the seventh circle of hell.  Every time he visits a relative I shall send it with him until someone breaks and admits guilt.

My Sister’s homemade orange liqueur looks like a urine sample from someone who has been stranded in a desert for three weeks.  It tastes like flat Fanta.  This seemed to please everyone else who enjoys her offering.  I stick to gin.

Despite the dishwasher being broken, The Husband’s constant taunts that he’s going to use every utensil in the cooking process and my anxiety dreams the washing up isn’t really a problem.  I secretly enjoy washing up, finding it therapeutic and it’s amazing what a teenager will tell you when they are unable to walk away due to a tea towel anchor.

When The Teenager announces on Twitter that she has drunk alcohol for 5 consecutive days you wonder what went wrong, but are pleased that you were only technically responsible for her for one of those days.

On Christmas Day night one of the teenagers decides that we should watch Get Him To The Greek.  This results in three adults hiding their faces at the incredibly rude bits … of which there are several.

For the first time in ten years we have no plans for Boxing Day. We lay about, do a bit of sitting around and just forget about time.  We play on the XBOX, play pool and watch films. This means that at 3pm we realise that the children have missed lunch.  Their chocolate moustaches indicate that they’ve not gone hungry.

Waiting until the children are in bed to play the ‘over 12′ XBOX games results in someone playing Halo and shouting ‘Die motherf*cker’ whilst The Teenager looks on with a mixture of embarrassment and awe.  That someone might have been me.

I particularly like the self-checkout at our store. I don’t have to queue or make small talk with the cashier if I’m that way inclined. I can whizz in and out at my leisure. Or so I thought.

The Teenager in particular likes the self-checkout, bipping her way through the shopping and then shoving my crisp notes into the feeder.

So on Friday, faced with a long queue, I suggested we do it ourselves. I said I would put the wine through the scanner as it would be illegal for her to do it. I scanned the wine. The obligatory alarm went off for the cashier to look over, scan my mother of two, sleep deprived, lived in face and press a magic button so we could move on.

Except he didn’t. He looked at me, at The Teenager, at me, at The Teenager. I rolled my eyes and said “You have got to be kidding me?” He shook his head.

Realising that there was absolutely no way on this earth he was going to accuse me of being under 18 and having endured a day at work, doing the school run and picking up The Teenager I’d had enough.

“I am 32 years old, my stepdaughter is 14, this wine is quite obviously for me!” I announced in an angry somewhat sarcastic tone.

All the time I was thinking “If I was buying alcohol for a 14 year old I certainly wouldn’t be buying a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, surely it would be some form of vodka based alcopop?”

I realised that the large queue to my right were now scrutinising my eye wrinkles laughter lines and displeased face.

The cashier continued to look us up and down to the deep sighs of the people waiting to be served. He then, somewhat reluctantly, pressed the magic button which meant we could continue bipping our shopping

Bip, bip, bip, bip.

My next problem came in the form of a large cucumber. Once scanned, the screen said ‘UNIDENTIFIED ITEM’ and the alarm went off again.

I had to wield a cucumber at the man whilst shouting across the store “It’s a cucumber” and in my head “If you don’t press that bloody button I will thrash you about your person with it”. Thankfully he pressed it before I could act on my thoughts.

Just as I was foraging in my purse for money another bloody alarm sounded and the words ‘UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA’ started flashing on the screen.

It turns out, the Teenager was the unexpected item, she was leaning on the frame too hard. I said to the man “The unexpected item is my Teenager!”.

By the time we’d finished the long queue to my right had gone, the cashier was still looking at me questioningly, probably wondering which mental institution I was on day release from, and I guiltily said goodbye.

Guiltily because I had lied … I had told him I was 32. I am 31.

When having an argument with your husband/wife about what someone has or has not just said on Spooks, being able to rewind it to prove the other person wrong

The downside of Sky+

When I got home on Sunday afternoon from my weekend away with work the 5 year old proudly told me she had watched I’m a Celebrity with the teenager that morning which was recorded the evening before. But, that wasn’t all, she had seen a kangaroo willy and some testicles which were crunchy.

Lovely.

Note to husband : I do believe that program is on after the 9pm watershed for a reason. Just because it is watched during daylight hours does not make it acceptable. If that was the first thing she wanted to tell me about her weekend when I returned home, imagine the sentence and picture she will draw in her ‘what I did at the weekend’ book at school.