Baby Steps

In the grand scheme of things Miss 10 is a normal 10 year old girl with little quirks that turn on my radar and make me take notice now and then. She's so different from the other two children that live in my house that I sometimes forget that they are alike in many ways as well, more physical then anything, but other ways too. Like their sense of humor and what makes them get incredibly frustrated and their love of completely annoying the crap out of each other.

Today Miss 10 was doing some of the announcing at mass. Why is that a big deal you ask? Because you see, it's in front of a big group of people, it's not in her comfort zone and she has the option of saying no. Which she has, many times. It's not like this is something she has never done before. She has gotten up in front of the church and done things before. She serves at mass, she has done a reading at mass, she takes up the gifts, etc. But, this was with priests she had gotten used to, priests she knew well enough to shake their hand after mass and maybe, on a good day, speak to.

This summer we got 2 new priests. Miss 10 has not spent much time with either of them. Last weekend she served mass for the first time with one of the new priests and it was different then they used to do it. She worried and stressed and all three servers did make mistakes. To her, that's devastating, making a mistake in front of lots of people. So when her teacher asked her on Monday if she would like to do some of the announcing, I fully would have expected her to say no. That would be typical. But she didn't, she said yes! It feels like a big step, it feels important, like a little of her shell broke and she's taking those baby steps on her own without me forcing it. It feels like a Fabulous Friday moment, and she was awesome!