Junior, the altar-server!

Oh my goodness... it was the cutest thing ever! 4th grade goes to church on Fridays and Junior begged me to come today because he was going to try to get a turn to be altar server. I went and sure enough, he got a turn today! He and a classmate (who is wild and crazy and adorable -- I love her!) had their first try today, with a 6th or 7th grader to guide them. The older boy's parents do a lot around the school and we always talk to them. We like them a lot.

Anyway, Junior was so cute -- you can imagine. He was making all of his cute little Junior-boy faces. He kept looking at me to see if I was watching. He would give me a tiny little wave with his hand down by his side so he didn't get caught. He would give me his cute little smile ("Don't you just love my cute little smile?" he said to me once, while showing me his Kindergarten school picture). And he would look nervously at the older boy, waiting for him to tell them where to stand, when to walk, what to carry. His little nervous ticks -- the scrunching up his nose and blinking hard -- he would do that when it was his turn to do something. It was just so cute and sweet, I wanted to giggle and cry all at once. But I sat in the front row to see and I didn't want Father Tuan, or the stern-looking priest behind me to think I was going to cause trouble LOL I am 34 and still scared to death to get into trouble in church!

When it came time for the consecration, each kid got to take a turn ringing the bells. They do it three times, once to begin, once for the bread, and once more for the wine. His classmate got to go first and she did a fine job. She passed the bells to Junior and the older boy held his hand out, signaling him to wait. When it was time, Junior gave such a gentle jingle, the older boy had to encourage him to ring them a little harder. He did it JUST a tiny bit harder and set them down. The older boy was last and I thought it was SO adorable that even being the big kid -- he looked just as excited for his turn LOL And boy did he ring them! He gave them such a good hard long shake and Junior whirled his head around and stared, as if to say, "Shoot! I could have done it THAT hard???" I am sure that the next time he gets a turn, he is going to give them such a shake... cars outside might screech to a halt! LOL

Anyway, I wish I could have gotten it on video because it was so precious. I have been so stressed out lately and it was just what I needed. =)