Bedtime stories about patience.

Rosie and her friend Kemi planted a bean seed in a yogurt pot, pushed it into the soil and gave it a drink. "When will it grow?" asked Kemi. "Soon, I hope," said Rosie. They put it on the windowsill.

The next morning, they looked. Nothing. Just soil. The morning after, they looked again. Still nothing. "Maybe it's broken," said Kemi, and her face went crumpled. Waiting was hard.

Rosie's grandma had an idea. "Why don't you make it a waiting chart?" she said. So every day, they drew what they saw. Day one: soil. Day two: soil. Day three: soil, with a little crack in it. They drew the crack very carefully.

They gave the seed a name, Beanie. They read it a story. They watered it a tiny bit every morning. And on day six, there it was: a curly green shoot, pushing up through the crack, with a little folded leaf on top.

"It was worth waiting for," said Kemi, drawing the shoot on their chart with a big green pencil. That night, Rosie went to sleep thinking about Beanie on the windowsill, growing quietly in the dark. Some things take their time, she thought, and that's all right.

On a rainy weekend, Mom brought out a big square of cloth stretched in a wooden hoop. On it, she had drawn a pencil outline of their house, with a tree and a sun. "We're going to stitch it together," she said. "Everyone takes turns."

Arjun went first, because he was the youngest. He chose yellow thread and made three big stitches for the sun. Then he wanted to do more. "It's Leela's turn now," said Mom. Arjun sighed. Waiting was hard.

So while Leela stitched the green tree, Arjun sorted the threads into colors: reds, blues, greens, yellows. When it was Dad's turn, Arjun chose the next color he wanted, purple, ready for his go.

Round and round they went: Arjun, Leela, Dad, Mom, and Arjun again. The sun got rays. The tree got apples. The house got a red door and a purple chimney, which Arjun said was the best kind of chimney.

By bedtime, the picture was finished, with everyone's stitches in it, big and small, neat and wobbly. Mom hung it on the wall above Arjun's bed. "We all made it," said Arjun sleepily, "even the waiting parts." And he fell asleep under the stitched-up sun.

Wilf and his grandpa had baked a loaf of bread. They had mixed the flour, kneaded the dough and waited for it to rise. Now it was out of the oven, golden and crusty, and the whole kitchen smelled wonderful.

"Can we eat it now?" asked Wilf. "Not yet," said Grandpa. "It needs to cool down, or it'll be too hot and squishy inside. About half an hour." Half an hour! Wilf stared at the bread. It just sat there, steaming.

"If you stare at it," said Grandpa, "it'll take even longer. That's the rule." Wilf laughed. "That's not a real rule." "It feels like one," said Grandpa. "Come on. Let's do something else while we wait."

So they did a jigsaw puzzle of a lighthouse at the kitchen table. Wilf found all the edge pieces, and Grandpa found the tricky sky pieces. They got so busy that Wilf forgot about the bread altogether, until Grandpa said, "I think it's ready."

Grandpa cut two warm slices and spread them with butter, which melted into little golden puddles. It was the best bread Wilf had ever tasted. That night, in bed, he said, "The waiting went faster when we did the puzzle." "It usually does," said Grandpa. And Wilf fell asleep, full of bread.