Left Behind: The Adoption Version

If you decided to use the divide and conquer method during your adoption travels, allowing one parent to stay on terra firma with the *already home* kids, while the other took flight to bring the new ones home, what did you do to survive the wait?

A friend's husband is traveling right now (prayers, please!) to bring their preschool-aged daughter home from Ethiopia, and she'd like some suggestions for what to do during her week-long wait. Here was my advice:

First of all, they'll be here before you know it. Just keep repeating that to yourself. They really will be.

Second, obviously you have your hands full with other things this week already, but for distractions' sake, you could do something like cook and freeze meals, any major cleaning tasks (trust me you won't be getting to them for a while!), brush up on your new daughter's language (is there a site for that?), make "Welcome Home" signs for the airport or any other number of time consuming things.

But, if I was taking my own advice, I'd tell you that while those things will fill time, there is something intangible that is oh-so-more valuable during the wait. Don't let this time of waiting turn into sadness, use it to pray and contemplate all these things of your heart in preparation for the joy that is to come!

Okay, friends, what else do you recommend during the wait! Any and all suggestions are welcome...just not this one-no good comes of it, trust me!