seven years of marriage

The LORD is God,

And He has made His light shine upon us.

Psalm 118:27

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats

Sunday

passport

When we tried to book our tickets to Manila on Monday night, we realised that we needed a new passport for E. Her current one still has her six-month-old baby picture in it. She looks plenty different now. (Hair!) So Tuesday morning, I dropped off her application at ICA. According to their website, a new passport would take three working days to process. And ta-dah - in the mail today, we received notification to pick up her passport next Monday.

I love it when our civil service works.

In contrast, we've been told that we have to wait 20 business days for Noah's passport. Seriously. TWENTY?!

On a separate note, K and I leave for our first holiday without the kids tomorrow, in celebration of our 7th wedding anniversary on Monday. These are my stream-of-consciousness thoughts: It doesn't feel like 7 years. I can't bear to leave the kids. But there's shopping and food and Thai massage to be had, so yay! But what if I miss the kids too much? And what if they miss me too much? But then, how nice it'd be to eat a meal slowly and shop without having to call someone out from under the clothes racks...

in the papyrus basket

I have been thinking about Moses' story. Moses who led his people out of slavery, who parted the waters, and who could do all that because he was adopted when he was around three months old.

I am thinking about Moses' story because Noah is about the same age now as Moses was when his mother put him in a papyrus basket and pushed him out into the Nile. Her action took faith; she put her "fine child" into God's hands.

And God was there.

This is how we know. With perfect timing, Pharaoh's daughter was there, bathing with her attendants. With clarify of vision, she saw the papyrus basket among the reeds. With compassion in her heart, she heard Moses' small cry and spared his life, in defiance of her father.

Noah is in his own papyrus basket now, wending his way toward us. God has led us to wait expectantly for him, even while we do all we can to smooth out his way toward us. We are praying for his passport to be ready soon. (Meanwhile, we are also trying to get a new passport for E - her present one still has her six-month-old photo - so that we can all visit Noah in Manila in a couple of weeks.)

We carry him in our heart for now, and long for the day (not too long from now!) when we can carry him in our arms.

daddy's girl

E is turning into daddy's girl...

She asks, "Where my papa?", when she wants to sound particularly sweet. Works every time.

Sunday

three months old

Noah turns three months old today, as we move ever closer to bringing him home!

We are done with our Home Study Report, and are now just waiting for it to be mailed out to us. (Godstop: it's been faster than we thought - we were originally told ten weeks, but it took between six and seven weeks.) We are also waiting for Noah's passport to be done, and when that's ready we'll be able to apply for a Dependent's Pass to bring him into Singapore. We think we should have him home by the first week of September!

We had to attend a disclosure workshop a few nights ago; it is one of the requirements of our HSR. The main thing we got out of it: we really want to be able to create some memories for Noah even before he comes home to us. So we are thinking seriously about making a trip in the next few weeks to visit him in the home in Manila. The aim is for us to bring back memories of his time there, so that we have something to show him when he asks us about his life before he came home to us. We want to have a few more answers ready for when he asks. And it'll be a good process of creating memories for J and E too, of how their family came to be.


PS. It boggles my mind to think that when Noah comes home, we'll have three kids under the age of five! Deep breath...

*Edited to add: In the latest three-month-old photos of Noah, he's holding his head up when on his tummy already! A milestone that we've missed...

chamomile tea

There are conversations that happen every once in a while that need to be recorded for posterity. I just had one of these conversations.

J: What did you just say, Mom?

Me: I asked dad to make some chamomile tea.

Pause.

J: You're drinking MRTs?

Me: Huh? No, I'm not drinking MRTs. Cha-mo-mile tea.

J: Oh. There are camels on the MRT going underground?

asking the tough question

J: Mom, I don't want to be a grown-up. Because I want to play and watch TV everyday... How old are you when you don't have to go to school forever?

on being a wife

The greatest asset a woman brings to her marriage is not her beauty, her charm, her feminine wiles, or even her ability to bear a child. It is her theology. Every wife is her husband's partner, pastor, spiritual counselor, motivational speaker, and his fellow soldier in the war zone. With her eyes fixed on Jesus, she is less inclined to make her husband, herself, or her children the center of the universe. With head and heart filled with the knowledge of God, she will find strength to enter the fray and wrestle with all of life's problems, alongside her husband. As she lives in the light of God's sovereign goodness, she will radiate hope and courage to him in the darkest hours. With her feet firmly planted on God's holy character, she will find boldness to stand up to her man when his disobedience is tarnishing God's glory. And her husband will only be the better for it.

Carolyn Curtis James, When Life and Beliefs Collide

Sunday

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, "Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, far more than me - God who sent me."

- Mark 9:36-37 (The Message)

The kids have been asking when their new baby is coming. (J: When's our new baby coming? E: Where my new baby?) I wish we could give them a concrete date: we are still waiting for the paperwork to be done.

on holiday at home

Today we got to be "on holiday", as J put it. K was off from work - yay!

After school, we went for our first swim since coming back home, and then the kids had their first trip to the library after dinner, where they got their own library books and a new book bag to haul their loot back.

The kid were thrilled with their swim, to say the least. And naturally, J's books were all train-related.

déjà vu

J continues to find things not to like in school. The most recent one: Mom, I don't want to learn Chinese in school.

I spent most of my school years thinking the exact same thing...

It continues to be hard for me to see him dreading school each day. Today, he had tears welling up in his eyes as I left. I would seriously think about homeschooling, except that I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to homeschooling him for all the years of school he has ahead of him. Where to even start. Plus I actually like the break I get when the kids are in school...

monster story

God blessed the kids at school today with a birthday party. They were fit to burst when I picked them up. J had barely stepped out of the door before he started ripping into his backpack for the birthday goodie bag to show me. They went on and on about their goodie bags and the birthday cake!

I was happy to see them happy.

Later, J told me that he did "monster story work" in school today. It took me more than a few minutes to understand that he meant montessori work.

Sunday

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

This is one of my all-time favourite verses. I find myself coming back to it again and again because it speaks to how God loves us.

I have felt frustration and discouragement this week, and have been very tempted to throw in the towel. Yet, here's the thanksgiving: God has answered a prayer, by sending someone specifically to encourage me, so I have not felt so alone in the struggle. So my Godstop today is Mary. And I thank God for her.

happy 4th

I'm thinking of our friends who are celebrating 4th of July today... Happy 4th!

feet a-dragging

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
- Elizabeth Stone

Well, my heart is taking a bruising.

After a mere two days at school, J has started dragging his feet. He tells me he doesn't want to go to school; this morning, he said his head was giddy, so he couldn't go. I hate to see him dread something so much.

He's been through this before. At his two previous preschools (for four months before we left for Claremont, and then while we were in Claremont), I heard the same thing with some degree of regularity: I don't want to go to school, mom... And E, who takes her cue from him in just about everything, has started echoing him.

This is what I think it is: he gets over the novelty of something pretty fast and bores easily. So after the novelty of the first day at school, he's pretty much done with it!

I don't quite know how to break it to him that he has TWENTY years (or so) of school ahead of him!

All I can do now is pray that God will bless each day for both J and E, that they will find joy in their time at school, that they build good relationships with their friends and teachers; and that they may be filled with a joyful spirit.

and off they went

J and E were clearly looking forward to it: they got up by themselves bright and early this morning - before 7am!

Daddy waited for us, and we all left the house together. He said a prayer for them after getting them into the car and I drove them to school. J seemed a little lost when we got there: there weren't that many toys laid out that he could see; E was just excited to see a whole fish tank of goldfish. I left after a hug and a kiss each.

They both ran to me when I arrived to pick them up later. I think they had a pretty good time - it's been a while since they've had school and J's been asking about going to school. E did refuse to leave her kor-kor's side all morning, I was told, and so he had to stay with her class. But I'll leave her teachers to sort that one out!

Otherwise, they both did great. I think I was a little bit of a wreck all morning, wondering how they were doing.