Tick tock, tick tock...

Jon writing....

We're trying to teach Chelsea to wait.  It's a hard concept for a 3 year old...her entire life we've basically done whatever she needed for her as soon as we were able.  So the concept is a bit lost on her so far.  We've had some good luck with getting her to count....we'll say "wait, Chelsea.  Count to five."  She'll count 1...2...3...4...5...and then when she's done we'll give her what she wanted.  She's starting to get the hang of it.  I started trying to get her to count to 10, but so far no luck...after 5 she repeats her request :)  It's progress though, and I'll take it.

How can it be that I am trying to teach a 3 year old to wait, yet having so much difficulty waiting myself?  Right now we're waiting on travel dates for our first trip to Bulgaria to meet our little dude.  And the waiting is driving me nuts.  In the business world, where I'm used to operating, you get done everything pretty much as fast as you can, so you can get on to the next thing.  Apparently adoption-land doesn't work quite the same way  :)

I'm reminded of the Tom Petty song "The Waiting".  "The waiting...is the hardest part...."  Running around, getting fingerprints, getting documents notarized and apostilled, etc. while difficult and sometimes annoying, was much easier live with.  Why?  Because in some sense, we controlled it.  We could make the process go faster if we got done what we needed to and planned accordingly.  The waiting is indeed the hardest part - as we're waiting on somebody else whose timeline doesn't work quite the way ours does.

I keep imagining God, sitting up in heaven looking down at me....saying, "OK Jon....count to five.....1...2...3....4....5...."  I suppose he knows better than I do - but as a lowly (OK very lowly LOL) person, I think my 3 year old does better than I do sometimes :)

Tick tock, tick tock...the days roll off the calendar....