This past Tuesday our son boarded a bus with a ton of other teen and preteen students and headed to youth camp. This ritual has been observed for decades and all across our nation.

Moms and Dads stand and wave as their cherubs drive away for a week of fun-filled excitement and hopefully spiritual renewal. These days we also bombard our social media followers with live feeds and snapshots of our most prized possessions standing behind their inordinately large suitcases full of all the things they could ever need … and off they go.

These are the times, the milestones, where most of us are joyful and exciting even if a touch nostalgic. But for some they are a melancholy.

This week would have been Brynna’s first foray into the world of teen camp. This year she would have been able to try out for cheerleader for the first time. As the bus rolled away and the Facebook posts ding my phone, Tammy reminds me that this year she would have been at camp with her big brother.

Instead, we celebrate a win of a different kind. This week she was fitted for a new gate trainer to help her walk with more independence. This year she finally has taken less interest in Blue’s Clues and more in the old recordings of Drake and Josh.

She loves worship and can be in spaces with new people sometimes without having a complete meltdown.

Truly, Brynna has her own milestones, ones we celebrate all the time, but I wont say it isn’t hard to watch the divergent paths of her and her peers with every passing day.

But we celebrate where we can. Next week she will go to VBS and have a ball. Later she will go to RA Camp during the day and she will have a blast!

She celebrates her milestones at her own pace, and that’s perfectly ok with me.