Choir Practice
Miranda's Nanna is a choir director, and I'm currently in that choir (she needed altos for a couple of special presentations for Christmas). At the moment, Miranda's Grandpop is in hospital (nothing life-threatening; he just needs IV anti-biotics for an infection). Usually Nanna and I go to choir practice and Dad stays with the little girls and gets them to bed, etc. Now, though, he wants to take Zoë to visit Grandpop in hospital, and managing both Zoë and Miranda can be a bit tricky.
So, Miss Miranda came with Nanna and me to choir practice.
She's well familiar with the church and knows most of the people in the choir, so that was fine. She sat with the altos and wanted to sing. She does read music (though I'm quite sure she can't sight-read to sing!), and for some of the later things we did she was okay, because they were on single or double pages, but the first one is a multi-part cantata and there was a lot of page flipping and going through the different parts, etc. etc.
Miranda kept getting lost and wanted me to find the page for her, a bit distracting when I'm trying to learn my part (especially since I had one particular tenor behind me, BOOMING out the tenor part so loudly that I couldn't hear either of the very strong altos on either side of me!).
Anyway, in the car on the way home, Miranda was singing songs she knew, and she was trying to sing them in parts, like she'd heard the choir doing!
She's got a fantastic ear, this one.
Oh, and I should also mention that her violin teacher thinks she should be preparing for her level 1 exams on the violin, in the middle of next year. Doing level 1 exams when you're five is... rare. And I have no doubt that she'll be able to do them, either!
A conversation with Miranda
We went to the grocery store after I picked up Miranda from kinder. While there, we got a roasted chicken to have for lunch, along with some other things. When we were through, I let her carry the bag with the chicken in it, but when we got to the car, she tossed it a bit haphazardly onto the seat of the car.
I told her that it needed to be kept more upright so the juices wouldn't run out.
Miranda: Yeah. Because then we can't drink the juice.
Me: No, you don't drink the juice from roast chicken.
Miranda: Why not?
Me: You just don't.
Miranda: Then why don't we want them to get out?
Me: It'll make a mess. So that's why I'm turning the chicken this way. Making a mess is what I'm trying to avoid.
Miranda: Yeah. I'm avoiding it too. [pause] What's "avoiding" mean?
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