Some tigers can't change their stripes

When Emma was a toddler, she stayed by my side at playgroup.  Braeden had always explored the perimeter and socialized freely.  I didn't mind that Emma was different from Braeden.  I like them both, shy and not.

Emma's whole life she's hated to order in restaurants or talk to strangers or answer the phone.  I get that.  I am pretty much the same way.

Lately, I've wondered if she's changing.  Some of her new school friends were going to the temple.  Emma couldn't find her temple recommend so she made a phone call and got an appointment with the bishop.  She got her new temple recommend and rode the bus to a girl's house she minimally knew and went to the temple with her friends.  Amazing.  She did it all herself.

Then, she had a hunch she was in the wrong math class because the class seemed too easy.  She didn't tell me and have me fix it, she talked to her math teacher.  He confirmed that she was in the wrong class.  He didn't realize she was a sophomore and she was in a pre-calculus class for juniors and seniors who didn't plan to take AP calculus.  The school had changed their system and she would be better prepared for AP calculus in a different math class.  So Emma made an appointment with her counselor.  She chatted with another counselor while she waited.  He asked her about the Yale t-shirt she was wearing and they made a connection about Seattle too.  He ended up being the counselor to adjust her schedule because the other counselor was busy.  Emma was able to navigate her schedule change and purposely put herself in the same hated computer class that Braeden has.  (They will hate it less when they're in it together.)  Also, she was able to get the same math teacher for her new math class because she really likes him.  Emma told me all of this news and I was stunned.  My Emma!  My shy introvert who doesn't like to talk to strangers advocated for herself and made things happen.

Amazing.

Saturday night we were watching the BYU football game in our basement.  It was all kinds of fun.  Ammon and Melanee and their children were over.  We even stood up and sang the BYU fight song at one point.

Emma has very little interest in football, BYU or otherwise.  She played with her little cousins awhile but then she retreated upstairs to write on the computer.

The computer is near the front door.

Emma heard people come to the front door.  She was the only one upstairs and she did not want to answer the door.  To go down the stairs to where we were, she would have had to walk by the front door.  They would have seen her.  She went the other way.  She went outside to the deck, down the outside stairs and to the basement door.  "Someone's at the door," she told us.  We sent Mark upstairs because he is afraid of exactly nothing and the rest of us were too lazy/watching the football game (they weren't going to trounce Texas without us).  Mark reported there were people to see Braeden.  (In fact they were kids from school, drama kids, there to kidnap Braeden and take him out on the town for some fun.  Thank you drama kids from school!  You don't know what your kindness and inclusion mean to this Mama.)

"Why did you come all the way downstairs instead of answering the door?" we asked Emma.

"I didn't want to," she said simply.

There's the Emma I know and love. She can be brave when she needs to but good luck trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.

I wouldn't have her any other way. (Except for sometimes when I want her to do something she doesn't want to do.)