Santa Parade

2 weeks ago there was a competition in our local newspaper to win tickets to sit in the grandstand for the Auckland Christmas parade. You had to write telling why your kids deserved to sit there... so this is what I wrote: I would like to surprise our 2 girls with tickets for this parade as they have had a tough year. On June 6 their brother was born and he has been in Starship since then, having undergone 9 operations and been in ICU and on the ward since then. For the past 5 and a half months our girls have had to cope with being juggled around Samuel's needs and only having 1 parent at home each night, as we take turns alternating staying in hospital with Samuel. We haven't had much time or energy to do activities we would like, like taking them swimming or to have friends over to play. We are so proud of them - how they love their brother, yet have missed out on many normal things because of his needs, yet they don't complain. We would love to have the opportunity to do something fun and normal that is a seasonal distraction from the slog of caring for a chronically ill baby whom we all adore.

So I must have pulled at someone's heart strings and we won some tickets! Then we get a phone call from the Auckland City Council saying TVNZ wanted to film a family at the parade and they had selected us from the letters received.

For those non-kiwis this Christmas parade is an institution, having run for 80 + years and around 250,000 people attend. Francis took the girls to church in the morning for the Christmas play practice then made their own way there. I stayed with Sam making sure I had covered all the bases with his care and figured out timings/milk/tpn hook off/should there be a power cut etc etc and handed over to Aunty Toria & Aunty Karlene and ran to catch the bus. After some coaching from me to the girls like, 'please don't pick your nose', 'please try to be happy' etc... Jasmine was very '8 turning 18' with mumblings about floats being 'babyish' and not even a little impressed with the Santa float as hey, she knows who the fat red guy is also known as (trying to be discreet for all little readers out there!). The camera guy and Sarah the reporter were very discreet and we hardly noticed they were there so could just get on and ooh and aah at the right places (or mumble if you were a certain 8 year old). The editing department clearly did a great job as the 1 minute segment looks like we were one big happy family!!! Then we got back just in time to do Sam's next bunch of cares and have a tv dinner watching ourselves on the news! So it was a lovely afternoon out and was pretty cool to be able to see everything and not be amongst the hot standing throng on the street. You can watch it on the internet at http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/huge-crowd-auckland-santa-parade-3200337/video.xhtml

Sam missed out on all the excitement - we actually toyed with the idea of taking him, but so glad that sanity prevailed. He's had a really happy weekend with lots of stimulation as we had a visit from the lovely Hawkins family yesterday morning, then a Davy family get-together in the evening. So it's been a fun and busy weekend which we all enjoyed.

On Friday I had a 'respite carer' come for 3 hours and it was great to have her help around the house - apparently our kitchen has a bench - it was a welcome find!. This week will be the first full 5 day week where we will have daily afternoon help and I can't wait! It really is such a help having another pair of hands. It will free me up to do some much needed extra physio with Sam. Anne (Nana) is also coming in weekly to play with Sam and the girls so I can do other things. So we feel like we're getting into a routine - I even went for 2 runs last week... well jogs I guess... oh alright they were possibly just fast walks, but hey it was a start!

We have a saying in our house, 'A happy wife means a happy husband'... it could now be, 'A happy Sam means a happy family'.

Have a good week. X Team Davy