promised land

So last weekend these two darling little girls performed in the Christmas pageant at our church.




Did you catch that? These *TWO* girls.

Maya loves going to practice, but almost never performs with the choir. In fact for last year's pageant she wouldn't even rehearse with the rest of the kids. This year she told me she was going to get up on stage, but to be honest I remained skeptical. Then we got all the way to dress rehearsal and there she was on stage, in her costume and I switch from skeptical to cautiously optimistic, but I wasn't going to be surprised if she bailed at the last minute.

Abby is Abby... loves to sing. She sings all the time at home and she's been up singing with the choir for years now. I knew she'd be right up there singing her face off, but Maya... oh Maya... you just never know with that one.




You guys.... when she walked out on that stage with the rest of the kids I could have put my head in my hands and wept. Make no mistake, there was more than a tear of two that worked it's way to the surface and that was despite me holding my shit together. I said to Mike later I was just overwhelmed to see her up there, smiling, relaxed, having fun because I feel like everything with Maya has been the hard way, the long way around, the slow boat and finally here was something easy even if we did take our time getting there. She's just changing so much so quickly and bit by bit I can feel it getting easier. I can see her getting comfortable in her own skin. She's finding her place and I am so relieved.




Not only was she up there singing like it was her job, she came down to sing to the people in the pews. I was pretty sure she was going to balk at that point, but she shocked me again.

The pageant was an original production, music and lyrics were written by our neighbour. The kids and the senior choir sang the heck out of it! I was thrilled that I had the chance to see the kids perform it four times over the weekend (2 dress rehearsal run throughs and 2 performances). It's going to rank up there as one of my best parenting moments. One I have played over in my head a million times already along with the music, that I still can't stop humming. I'm so thankful we got to share it with family and friends. Lots of pews full of our nearest and dearest.




You know I was already thinking this was going to be the best Christmas ever.