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