Nat is 4 and Adam is 1!

Dear friends & family,

You're invited to a lunch to celebrate Adam's 1st birthday & Tik Chu's 4th
birthday.
Time : 12 noon
Date : Sat 6^th Nov 2010

Venue : Trinity Children Centre

Birthday gifts are optional. Your presence is present enough (hmm.... sounds
corny!). However, we would love handwritten cards as keepsakes.
Alternatively, you may make a small love offering to the Home.

Kindly RSVP by this Friday 29th Oct to facilitate the necessary
arrangements. Thank you.

And so went the invite for the first-ever party we threw for the birthday of our kids (yes, we had to make it a joint one as I just didn’t have the energy to plan 2 in the same month).

I had been meaning to celebrate Nat’s birthday at an orphanage for some time but it didn’t seem opportune till this year. While we have friends that celebrate their children’s birthdays every year, we thought we’d wait till she finally asked to have a party.

In the end, she didn’t (bless her!) but since her brother was turning one this year, I thought, why not? On hindsight, Nat probably wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the idea of sharing and giving when she was younger.

I did some research on the many children’s homes, mainly in PJ as I wanted it to be easily accessible to our friends, to find the more deserving and less high-profile ones. I came to know about the Trinity Children’s Centre through Poesy Liang, the founder of an organisation called Helping Angels, that amongst other projects, gives free tutoring to the children here on Thursdays. There are 20 children (maximum capacity) here with ages ranging from 6 to 16. Most of them are not exactly orphans but were abandoned or come from abusive or broken families.

We intended to keep the guest list to a minimum since there would be 20 children from the orphanage but things took a turn and we were extremely blessed to have more than 100 guests including kids. Okay, I admit I couldn’t resist making it a merry occasion and so extended the invite to quite a few friends but mostly, only those with kids around Nat’s age.

All along, I had thought that the home was housed in 2 adjoining single-storey semi-dees, and so, that everyone could rough it out inside. After all, charity was the focus here, not comfort. Two days before the party, however, I found out one of the houses had been sold earlier and all the kids were now squeezed into one. Add to that my extensive guest list and I was scrambling to find canopy, chairs and tables on a busy Deepavali weekend.

Thank God everything fell in place and we had wonderful weather to boot. The chocolate fountain (which I forgot to photograph) was a hit with the orphans. Even Wendy, the home administrator was amazed at how many people we could accommodate.

Our guests were understanding of the space and parking limitation and quite a few contributed to the home as well (Thanks, you guys!). Many couldn’t stay for the games though as some kids needed their afternoon naps but we had a swell time with the lovely kids of the orphanage. They were sweet, helpful and really deserving.

Did Nat & Adam enjoy it? Well, Adam doesn't know better. Being a kid, Nat would doubtless have preferred a party at an indoor playground. The thought of the kids not having a proper family managed to tug at her heartstrings a little as she said to me one night "So poor thing hoh, the kids, Mama? ...No Mama and Papa. I love them...".

Exhausting as it was, I would have done it all again in a heartbeat! Thanks also goes out to my little elves, Val, Julian & Carol and Tracia.