Dinnertime

This is what happens when I'm actually able to leave work with Drew and Rachel after he has picked her up from daycare:

I whip up a quick dinner of basil with cherry tomatoes and spaghetti, salad and dinner bread. Drew plays with Rachel upstairs. I have on KMHD, the local jazz radio station, as I prepare the food.

Drew brings Rachel downstairs to the kitchen, puts her in her high chair and assembles the salad. He has the genius idea of warming up frozen pasta shells, which she loves. He feeds her some pieces of tomato from our salads, which she also loves. Then she gets a cheese stick and two jars of baby food. We're just about finished with dinner when she starts tossing the pasta shells and tomato seeds to the floor.

I play with Rachel in the living room while Drew cleans up. It's limited play because I have somehow managed to pull a stomach muscle and can't really bend down or pick her up. After playing a bit, she nestles into the crook of my arm and I rock her back and forth while we sit and listen to a CD of soothing lullabies -- mostly African-inspired and Enya.

Then Drew puts her to bed while I finish cleaning up dinner, making my lunch for tomorrow, putting some baby laundry in the wash, washing the baby bottles and cleaning out the diaper bag. Drew calls me a "stud extraordinaire."

And now, dear readers, I'm about to leave to perform karaoke at a bar tonight. It's for another reporter's story on Portland's karaoke scene. Every one of the reporters (and editors -- we believe in equal opportunity when it comes to embarrassing ourselves singing) on the Portland team must sing "I Will Survive" at a karaoke bar of our colleague's choosing. The results will be widely available when the video goes live.

Hey, maybe I'll be discovered. Or kicked out of Sweet Adelines. Wish me luck that I don't completely blow it.