If you wait long enough...

For a couple years in a row, a bird tried to build a nest on the outside light by my front door.  My grandpa would come over every day and take away all the grass that the bird had put there the previous day.  I just couldn't see having a nest there right where we open the door.
Two years ago, the bird never did get the message, and laid her eggs there even though her nest was gone.
I felt so terrible.  I swore that, the next time I saw a bird's nest, I didn't care where it was, no one was removing it.
I changed lights so the birds would no longer have a platform to be tempted by, and I waited to see if they would pick another place on my porch.
Last year, the birds didn't come, and I figured they were traumatized by the mean human living here, and they would never come back.
So early this year, when they started building a nest on the opposite side of my door, on the outside of the porch overhang, we were thrilled!
We waited, and waited, and waited.  There was a perfect little nest there.  We could only see grass hanging down from the porch...you had to go to the yard to see the nest from the outside. It's the perfect place!
After a while, both the mommy and the daddy bird were sitting on the nest all the time.  I didn't know both of them did that.  They were so valiant!
Then they stopped sitting on the nest all the time, and I was confused.  Where did they go?  Did that mean the eggs were not going to hatch?  For a couple weeks I was sure that the baby watch was over and something bad must have happened.
But yesterday, another mom from down the street came over yesterday to collect her child and said, "Did you know your babies were born?".
Yes!
I ran out to the yard, and, behold, I saw four little baby bird heads popping up out of the nest.  It was dinnertime and the mom (or was it the dad?) were flying back and forth, fetching them dinner.
Whew!  I'm glad all that pacing and worrying is over...
Oh wait!  It's when they leave the nest that the worrying really starts, right?