first week home

He's got such a sweet smile...

The just-woke-up look...

They are still loving him!

We had a chance to share a little with our church family today our reasons for adopting Noah (not everyone reads the blog). I was thankful for it. This will be Noah's church family too, and it was important to me that they understood why we chose this path. So K did the honours and both of us (he onstage and me offstage) teared up a little when he explained how Noah is our son. He may have grown inside someone's body, but he is our son, the son God planned for us to have.

It's been hard work with the three kids. The hardest part of the day is when the two older ones come back home from school. They'll always still bouncing off the walls a little and are not particularly inclined to obey me quickly and easily. It's been a lesson in patience for me.

Even with the harder moments, it feels wonderful to have N home with us. Adopting him is my path of obedience. And as he settles down into his life with us, we look forward to his healing. Healing of some physical ailments. Healing of his emotional loss. Healing that only God can work out.

Sunday

getting to know you, getting to know all about you

We have been learning about Noah, as much as he is learning about us.

J and E are still pretty excited to have him here: Noah's like their toy-of-the-moment. They get upset each time I tell them that Noah's taking a nap; and they have been busy showing him off to almost everyone they know (and sometimes, people they don't know as well: strangers we meet in the lifts, for instance).

E is learning though that a new baby in the house means a little less attention for her, and she isn't enjoying that part so much. But she's still incredibly gentle with him, and she gets a kick out of making him chuckle. J is affectionate, sometimes a little too much! Noah definitely doesn't like it when J pops out in his face calling out his name!

Things we've learnt about Noah:

He's an okay feeder; but we're working on fattening him up! He sleeps quite a bit, and falls asleep by himself with nary a cry, which amazes K and I each time it happens. (Those who knew J when he was a newborn would know that he trained me to have very low expectations when it came to sleep!) So I am enjoying having a baby who can fall asleep on his own.

He coos, and has a really cute laugh: sort of a chuckle.

He likes his baths.

He's a great burp-er.

We're waiting on a few health tests, and are praying that he is fully healthy. We are also praying that he will have no problems attaching to us.

Sunday

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.

1 Samuel 1:27

I cannot say how thankful and blessed I am to know that as I am typing this, all my children are home, sound asleep in their beds.

Meeting our little brother for the first time

It was love at first sight, even though I wasn't sure it would be this way. Maybe it'd be a slow road, I had thought. It wasn't. And each time I carry him, feed him or change him, I fall in love just a little bit more.

It's been a little hectic this past day and a half: we brought Noah home, introduced him to two very enthusiastic older siblings, figured out the whole bottle feeding thing, remembered how floppy little babies can be. And then today, we dug out baby toys, introduced him to his grandparents and his church family, and got a new baby mobile for his bed (kor-kor helped put it together!).

It's been hectic, but wonderful too. Because right now, all my kids are in their beds, sound asleep.

introductions, please

Noah is home.

Everyone, meet Noah.


We are all adjusting. But Noah, especially. It must feel like his whole world has shifted.

blessed

We have heard people say, how lucky Noah is to be adopted, how blessed he is that he will be joining our family. It is easy, instinctive almost, to think this way. Because we are the ones who have, and right now, until he arrives on Saturday, he has not.

But this is not the message we've been getting.

In the past couple of days, through different messages from different friends, this is God's common theme for us: Noah is God's gift to us; we are the ones who are blessed.

And the truth is, we are already blessed. Blessed with friends dear to our hearts, here in Singapore and halfway across the world who pray with us, pray over us, and come alongside us to support us in this journey. Blessed with kids who are excited about an addition to our family, who eagerly tell anyone who will listen about their "baby Noah".

And this is before Noah even arrives.

We have much to be thankful for.

So we await with anticipation, the blessing that he will be to us.

four months old today

and four days to go before he gets here!

We're getting ready!

pre-school routines

Each morning, I shepherd both kids into the car, buckle them into their seats and drive them to school.

Each morning as we walk from our car to their school, I say a prayer aloud for them, so that they know that I am praying for them, and that I am asking God to cover their day. I almost always pray for the same things - that they will have a fun time learning, that they will have fun with their friends and teachers, that they will be healthy, and that they will be kept safe in their day. Sometimes we pray for their teachers and their classmates too. In the early days of settling into school, this was a real comfort to J: he would ask me to pray for him over and over again. Ad nauseum.

Each morning, they get their temperatures taken and hands and feet checked before they step into their class. J always goes first, E will not sit down until he's done. As each of them take their backpacks and water bottles from me, I tell them to have a good day, I tell them that I'll see them later and that I love them. Then I give them a little kiss on their heads. J is always moving away from me as I do this. Is he old enough to feel embarrassed by this already? So one morning I skip his kiss. He takes a step, then stops.

"Mom, aren't you forgetting something?" he asks. And points to his head.

And so I get to kiss my little man, who is growing up faster than I want him to. And feel gratified that my gestures of affection are still appreciated!

Sunday

Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
Psalm 125:1

No shaking allowed!

getting into the olympic spirit

For the first time in 48 years, Singapore is actually in the running for either a gold or a silver medal in table tennis. Woo-hoo!

What we are learning from this year's Olympic games - J has the most competitive spirit! He was cheering the Singapore table tennis team on. He wants to watch anything Olympic-related on TV, never mind what sport it is. And when Singapore is not in the running, he cheers on USA (he recognises the US flag and calls it L.A. flag!).

The F1-Singapore Grand Prix happens next month. We stumbled on this ride in a mall that we go to quite often. To say that J was excited is perhaps understating it - he almost burst. He is fiercely competitive: he gives dirty looks to the other kids in the other cars as he passes them. He got really annoyed with a girl for stopping because she was blocking his way. When he wasn't glaring at his competitors, he was smiling in delight at the speed at which he was going. He's been on this ride on two separate occasions, each time he cried when the ride ended because he wanted to keep going.

After the ride today, he said, "Mom, next time when I grow up, can I be a race car driver?"

birthday day

J burst into our room bright and early this morning with a big "happy birthday, dad"!

This is what we had on: morning out at the beach, Japanese all-you-can-eat dinner, and two birthday cakes!

Sunday

When Love Takes You in
- Steven Curtis Chapman

I know you've heard the stories
But they all sound too good to be true
You've heard about a place called home
But there doesn't seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream

When love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in

And somewhere while you sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been lost in what will be

When love takes you in, everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart

And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever
Cause this love to lose its hold

When love takes you in, everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When loves takes you in, it takes you in for good
When love takes you in

we have a date

Noah arrives on a flight from Manila 23 Aug 2008. That's just in two week's time.

We completely sped through the Dependent's Pass application. I drove down on Tuesday to submit the forms, and the in-principal approval letter was in our mailbox on Thursday. And we were originally told that we'd receive the letter in two weeks. Can I say again how great it is to have a civil service that works?

Today I told J that Noah would arrive in two weeks. How many days is that, he asks. I tell him, fourteen. And J says, That's still a lot of days, mom. How about tomorrow instead?

Choosing

Guest writer: The Body Electric

We value choice in almost all areas of our lives. When we lived in southern California, the huge variety of stuff for sale in the supermarkets sometimes confounded me. An entire shelf full of mayonnaise! Sausages? Low fat, nitrate free, organic, meatless and so on. Buy a coffee? An economist could probably make an argument that the price difference between Starbucks coffee and the coffee from a regular coffeeshop here in Singapore reflects the choice available to me at Starbucks: espresso, latte, low-fat, decaf, mocha and so on. Choice, it seems, is a good thing, something worth paying a premium for.

A liberal democracy enshrines the right to choose as an almost inalienable aspect of life. People who do not choose their leaders cannot possibly live in a healthy, vibrant polity. A consumerist society lives by the accumulated choices of its participants. Not only do I have the right to choose what to buy, but I also want to have the right to choose when to buy, and how to buy, and from whom to buy.

On Facebook, I can choose whether or not to accept someone as a friend. Just a few days ago, someone I am certain I have never met sent me a request to become a friend. When I look at this person's age, background and other friends (and we do not have any friends in common), I can only conclude that he's made a mistake and probably thinks I'm some other Keith Tan. But I hesitate to exercise my choice. I hesitate, on the one hand, to invite him into my virtual life on Facebook. On the other hand, I feel reluctant to cut him off completely. Choice has paralyzed me.

Some of the biggest decisions in my life have reflected the exercise of choice. I chose to get married to a beautiful, gentle woman whose heart unfailingly chooses compassion each time. I chose to become a father twice, now three times over. I chose to accept the Love that showers me, every day, with the ability to love back, to bless, to hope, to believe, passionately, sometimes blindly, that things will get better. Sometimes I forget that the choices available to me reflect the almost insensible luxuriousness of my life. Many people do not have the luxury of choosing between chocolate chip and vanilla ice cream. Many people do not have the luxury of choosing to start a life together with a partner they love and someone else they only have the vaguest relationship with.

So this is what I will tell each of my children one day, and in particular, the one whom we chose specially:

Before the beginning of the world, God chose you for me. And God chose me for you.

And when your life began, as a tiny clump of cells or as a tiny clump of ideas, I would lie awake wondering about the choices before me and the choices that you would have one day.

How would I do as a father? What would I read to you? What games would I play? Should I teach you the difference between a Tiger beer and all the other nasty stuff or let you find out yourself?

What if you had problems that I didn't know how to solve? What if you came to me one day with your heart broken by the world and I had no words to say to comfort you? What if you decided you wanted nothing to do with the rest of your family? What if you broke my heart one day?

And time and again, the answer would come back. I chose you. As God chose me with all my messiness, all my failures, all my dismal fears and my whining, whinging nature, I chose you. I chose you knowing that you might one day wrench my heart in two. I chose you knowing that you would change me, that I would never, ever be the same man again once I saw you, once I held you in my arms, once you put your tiny fingers in my hands.

I chose you. And I hope that you will choose to embrace the richness and vividness of life with wholeness, with excitement, with adventure, with compassion. That you will choose people over things, faith over cynicism, love over indifference, giving over grasping.

And that's my great, audacious hope for you.

standing at the edge

Noah comes home in about three weeks' time.

We've been praying and preparing for this for a while now; we only have to apply and wait for his Dependent's Pass and then he'll be here. Home with us.

Even at this point, I in my weakness wonder what I'm getting myself into. How we will all adapt to have a new baby in the house. Getting used to bottle-feeding, which two children on, is still completely new to me. Waking up at night for feedings. Hustling three kids, instead of just two kids now, out of the house in the mornings, and herding three kids back into the house after school. Managing meal-times, bath-times and settling-down-for-nap-times with three!

And then there's how J and E will be toward Noah. They're incredibly excited now, but I wonder if the novelty will quickly wear itself out and if they'll start acting up.

And then there's me. I want to love Noah exactly the same way that I love J and E. But I carried them for nine months inside me. Even before I met them, I felt them within. And I worked hard through labour to be able to hold them and love them. It is all different with Noah, and because it is different, I am not quite sure what lies ahead.

Our pastor spoke from 1 Joshua yesterday at church. After Moses' death, the Israelites stood at the edge of their promised land. They had been here before, only they had been too afraid before, and instead of stepping forward, they held back and so wandered the desert for forty years. As they stand there, the Lord tells Joshua, "Be strong and courageous." To make sure it sank in, He said it three times.

I am standing at the edge now, just before this land that God has led us to. We can't quite see all of the land that lies before us. We're not quite sure of what lies in the hidden valleys. We don't know yet what sort of fruit the land will bear.

But God knows all this. And yesterday, He reminded me, "Be strong and courageous... for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Sunday

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

dance of joy

The passport is ready! The passport is ready!

And ahead of schedule too.

We are expecting Noah in just a few weeks!!

sweet, generous heart

Today has been one of those days.

J comes home from school, grouchy and whiny when he realises that we're not going anywhere but home.

E's whiny and crying because she wants to wear the pretty dress that's in the laundry. Crying because she wants kor-kor's man-with-sticky-feet toy that he got from a goodie bag from school. Crying because she doesn't want me to brush her hair after her bath. Crying in all probability because she just really needed a nap straight after school.

Time to count my blessings.

J and E have their names put up on their bedroom doors in cute colourful letters. A couple of days ago, we bought letters for Noah too. J found them before leaving for school this morning, and wanted to know what they were for. After I explained to him that we would stick the letters on his door, so that it could be the boys' room in the future, he said, "But what about mei-mei? Then she'll be all alone in her room..."

And that is just how he is: sensitive to other people's feelings and wanting to be inclusive.

Oh, and his solution - he says he can sleep with daddy and Noah, and I can sleep with mei-mei.