My first entry on this blog was entitled "No Joy." I described how the first year of The Terrific Trio’s life had been so turbulent and stressful that The Joy of their arrival and miracle success was overshadowed by something else… grief, fear, sadness, fatigue. The very fact I am able to distinguish this, of course, is half the battle. In the last two months more and more flashes of Joy have crept in.

On February 23rd, their 1st birthday, we were steeped in No Joy. Both still exhausted and recovering from the past year’s events, I was about to embark on my 9th trip to India in ten months. A party was just too much for us at that point so we passed on the idea, quietly marking the day with a chocolate cake that delighted Sebastian. The cake decor was simple – one Chinese character: Miracle.

Well, Tess and I agreed a few weeks ago that the time has come to celebrate the Terrific Trio in a big way. The triplets passing their "one year out of hospital" anniversary and "one year developmental milestone" partly precipitated this event, too.

Next weekend we’ll have a belated birthday party for the triplets inviting all the Hong Kong friends who’ve supported us in the last 16 to 21 months. (The latter being when Tess became ill with OHSS and pregnant with the trips.) We’ve also labelled this a party celebrating Sebastian completing his first year of school.

In honour of this party I bought something online for The Kids from Hong Kong that was delivered to my hotel on Monday morning. A toy made in Germany but purchased in the US. When the package arrived I was so excited I squealed, forgetting the bell captain was still there, and did a decent job embarrassing myself. I had little time to investigate the goods and left for work.

Unfortunately, I had a sleepless week. Normally I am unaffected by jet lag but this week was terrible. Tuesday night I woke-up after sleeping for less than an hour. After a few hours answering incoming e-mails from Asia, I finally decided to crack open the birthday boxes to inspect the contents.

I promised my US colleagues I would not attempt to assemble anything. Doing so would mean I’d be awake the entire week – if not from the consumption of time, certainly from the resulting excitement. As it turned out, I ended up being awake anyway. But as far as assembly went I managed to avoid that short of lining up a few parts on the floor. The ridiculous present loosely took shape before my eyes. Visions of its life ahead with our family danced in and out of my imagination. The significance and impact of the past 16 months freshly formed in my mind’s eye.

I still grapple with the reality that we are a family of six but my new German friend made it very clear: you have FOUR children and I PROMISE that with me THEY WILL HAVE FUN and so will you! "I am here to unlock the Joy. My job is to pry it out of you." The fog of the past 16 months cleared a little more. What I saw was Tess’ and my love and commitment to Sebastian and The Terrific Trio, in itself breathtaking, unfathomable and not easy for any parent to look straight in the eye. I saw life ahead of us with family dinners, holidays, graduations, championships and awards.

"My gosh," I thought, "this is not just a birthday present… this is a ‘No Joy’ Buster. This thing is amazing. It is going to break the dam of Joy. Soon it will all come gushing out."

And amazing this item is. First, it is a novelty. I doubt there are many like it on the planet. Second, it is a gorgeous, stunning piece of German engineering with forethought and precision put into every aspect of the machinery. "German! All the parts will be here and only the exact number required. No more, no less. Some of Germany’s neighbours might have missed a few parts or even put in too many," I contemplated sarcastically.

Third, this thing oozes German quality. I am ashamed to say – because as a father of four I should know all these things – but I’d never seen this level of quality in a child’s toy. "Wow," I thought, "THIS is the pinnacle of German quality. If German quality were ever put on show… here it is now." Like all fine German products, this one sat there maturely, in no unnecessary hurry. Complete with high self confidence and high self esteem, it waited patiently to effortlessly make it’s mark on the world. "Typical," I said to my new friend lazily strewn across the floor, "just like a Porshce or a Mercedes, you just KNOW you’re good, don’t you?"

Mesmerized, I carefully repacked the items to travel size, sharing the heavier pieces between my suitcase and a large brown box. I imagined assembling this German show piece in Hong Kong and unveiling it to Sebastian and the Terrific Trio. Not something that can happen the day of the party. When Sebastian sees this thing, he’ll need to be peeled off the ceiling from excitement. Jasper, too, for that matter. Certainly the two of them will need a few days to calm down. Yes, the unveiling will take place this weekend to give everyone a chance to get to know this thing. That’s my unbiased, patient opinion. (At left, The Terrific Trio bang on the box while saying in their own language, "Open the box, Daddy!")

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Readers might be interested to know that I purchased this item through www.mytoybox.com and had an extremely positive experience. When the US centric website would not accept my Hong Kong credit card, I e-mailed customer service who manually processed my order in under an hour and immediately confirmed via e-mail. They promised the item would arrive by Tuesday. It got there a day early. Finally, I did discover – and good thing I checked the parts – that the Germans forgot the instruction booklet. Probably because they assumed other Germans would be the assemblers and would automatically know what to do. That, or perhaps (and I wouldn’t doubt it) this product is self assembling. Either way, I immediately e-mailed CS who sent me the instruction booklet in a PDF file within ten minutes… very impressive!  The bottomline: www.mytoybox.com is a great place to buy toys and very responsive, too.