Choir was Replaced by a Stork

So, I've come on to report the eventful happenings of yesterday, Wednesday. Because it was the Wednesday after Easter, Dr. Dodds decided that it would be good to give the choir a rest after all of the preparation for the Handel stuff that we did all through Holy Week (we never did end up doing "Worthy is the Lamb," though, which was kind of sad, but "Hallelujah" was a lot of fun). So, this Sunday, we're all going to sing "Holy Art Thou," which is another Handel song that the choir has already done, and it is absolutely gorgeous - in fact, I found it on Youtube with Andreas Scholl (who is an angel) singing it, and in Italian it is "Ombra Mai Fu," and it is about a pretty tree. I stumbled across this recording quite accidentally, but when I found it, I said, "Oh! We've sung this before, but it was not called 'Ombra Mai Fu,' but 'Holy art Thou,'" and so on.


I am also rereading one of my favorite books ever by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr: Breakfast of Champions. I have already done an extensive review of it on here, and therefore I shall not discuss it further.


Anyways, yesterday was an interesting day - I attired myself in my semi-renaissance poofy-sleeved dress with the orange ribbon (I'm slowly gaining a monopoly on the hair ribbon) and was dropped off at school by Heather. I felt sort of bad about this, because she usually leaves for work around the same time that I leave for school, but this morning she was still in bed when I entered the room to fetch Lancy and say good-bye to that father of mine. However, she insisted on getting up and accompanying me downstairs, where we cheerfully chatted over my quick breakfast of grapes. I stuffed some stuff in my lunch box, and we were off! Since I had spent the last two mornings in Dr. Moss' room, I figured I wouldn't bother him that morning, and so I loitered in the library for a while, reading Breakfast of Champions and discussing A.P. French with a comrade who is currently in my French class, Anna Spencer. She's going to governor school this summer to study French, and so I told her that she should definitely do A.P. next year.


The rest of the day passed in its usual flow of things - we worked on our All Quiet on the Western Front test in English, we had a substitute in dance class (and so we choreographed the last part of one of our Elvis songs), we did our national conventions in Civics class (so we got to show our Libertas Vitae commercial with the Nietszche camel quote and what-not), I sat with Sarah, Kiki, and Truman Capote at lunch, we played the new song that I hate in band class, I did some math, and then we did some stuff in French. However, toward the end of French class, Sarah and I were watching the time because we had the Student of the Year ceremony to go to - she had been picked by Frau Woloshyn (I just murdered the spelling) and I had been picked by my chemistry teacher Mr. Bragg (this had shocked me enough by itself because I never thought that I was all that great at Chemistry). We all congregated in the cafeteria, and Mr. Bragg and I mostly talked about music while we waited for the ceremony to begin. Apparently he used to play the viola and the bass. And he also figured out who had stolen the street sign which read "Gauntlet Drive" and put it in his yard. Of course, it was Brett and Sebass. Who else could it have been (it shall be immensely sad when the two of them go off to college, because nothing crazy will ever happen at the school - they are like the Weasley twins)?


In any case, we did the ceremony, and then I sauntered on home and had some serious piano action for about an hour and a half because I knew that once Hope got home, I would not have a chance to play the piano. When Hope came home, I felt sort of tired and not really up to frolicking around and trying to emanate good cheer, but I accompanied her outside to watch her ride her bike around the driveway. She wanted me to be the announcer for the bicycle competition, and so I said things like, "Here come the bikers, racing around the track - only ten seconds left on the clock - Ten! Nine! Eight! And Hopey Brafford wins!!!!"


Just as my voice cracked like that of a pre-teen boy, my dad stepped out into the screened porch area and called to us, "The boss beckons," or something like that. So we ambled on indoors to where Heather was sitting behind the computer at the desk. Now, the last time that we had entered this sort of scene, it was sometime in late November, and Heather had "received an emailed video from Santa Claus in the North Pole" which was addressed to Hope (it's this really neat website where you can customize a video for one of your kids so that the "Santa Claus" man is addressing the child. I did one for my mom and she loved it). So I figured that it would be a similar sort of thing this time, perhaps with an Easter bunny or something. So I scooched behind the counter and Hope sat on Heather's lap.


But on the screen, there was the video of a sonogram.


Heather pointed at it and said, "Hopey, what's that?"


I think that Hope knew what it was, but she said, "A kitty!"


Heather said, "No, it's not a kitty -" and then Hope tried to cover her tracks by saying, "Not a kitty! A kiddy! Like a kid!"


And then Heather asked, "Where is it?"


Hope matter-of-factly pointed to her stomach.


So, there was a moment in which general excitement was exchanged, and then it was established that Hope would talk of nothing else for the next 24 hours or so (that is still holding true, in fact: we were discussing baby names over dinner). As we left the desk to eat a celebratory dinner at Burke Street Pizza, I gave my dad a hug and told him, "You did good. Real good." And he was pleased.