Rachel comes to see Mommy at chorus!

Rachel has been expressing some interest lately in watching me sing. She asks me to sing every chorus song I know on the occasions that I put her to bed at night, so tonight Drew brought her to rehearsal.

It was wonderful having her there. They arrived just as we were finishing up warmup exercises and working some songs in our rep -- including at least one we'll be taking to Denver for internationals this fall. Drew said although Rachel was a little scared at the beginning because we were so loud, she really got into it. He pointed me out to her (I'm on the third row, stage left) and she spent the rest of the time watching us, munching on some chicken he'd brought her for dinner, and occasionally trying to catch my eye by waving at me. I blew kisses at her and she blew kisses back at me. It was beyond adorable.

Speaking of adorable, that's how at least 10 of my fellow chorus members described her after she and Drew left when she started drifting off into sleepyland. "She's so ADORABLE!" "She's so beautiful!" She's gotten so big!" "She's so well-behaved!" were some of the compliments I got. (I also got two compliments about Drew's looks. He was not impressed).

He said that toward the end she was trying to mouth some of the words and waving her arms in the air trying to follow us when we did choreography for our uptune. And then on the way home, she sang all the verses to "Clementine." Drew, darn him, followed up with, "On top of spaghetti." I'm going to pretend I don't know how to sing it if she requests it tomorrow night while he's in Seattle. He tends to do this sort of thing right before he blows town for a couple of days.

There's a "family chorus" that sings at international, and I am going to make sure we're part of it. She's already asking Drew if she can come onstage and sing with Mommy.

***

Last night at the dinner table, Rachel asked Drew, "What did YOU do today, Daddy?"
Drew answered, "I worked with numbers." (he was crunching some data for an upcoming story).
Rachel: "Like, 4?"
Drew: "Yes, sweetie."
Rachel: Like, 11?"
Drew: "Like a MILLION."
Rachel: "You mean, a jillion? Or a skadillion?" while laughing the whole time.