Friday, February 27, 2009

Keeping BUSY during the waiting period

In one way the time seems to go sloooowly as we wait to travel to get Grace.  I notice the empty chair at the dining table now.  I find myself feeling that someone is missing in the car, in the restaurant, etc.  And every day I hope is the day when we will sign the court papers and begin on the last leg of this waiting period.  Even though we have 2 clocks ticking at all times (one with our local time and one with Taiwan time...shouldn't time tick twice as fast that way??), sometimes time ticks slowly by...

But honestly, more than that, I find that the time is starting to go very quickly...mainly because of the projects we've line up.  I have 4 sewing projects that I'm trying desperately to finish before we leave for Taiwan (I know I won't have time to sew much in the months after she arrives, so I'm trying to get it all done NOW).  And this week we began a unit study on Taiwan...we're learning all we can about this beautiful island where Grace is.  Yesterday we also started learning basic sign language so that we can communicate with less frustration for Grace.  We started with 8 words: family, mama, daddy, sister, brother, bed, blanket and book.  We are *trying* to use these signs in our normal conversations as we speak so that they become natural communication, even before Grace arrives.  And I also bought some informational books to read before we travel...3 of them are books about adoption, attaching, and special needs...and we also bought a simple language introduction card with basic Chinese words.  We laughed as we realized that YES it would be nice to know what the Chinese symbols for "Men" and "Women" are so that we don't end up in the wrong bathrooms in Taiwan!  :)

So, time passes slowly and quickly at the same time.  Odd.  But, all the projects we have lined up are greatly helping us from focusing too much on those dual clocks ticking!  :)