Annie

I took Ella to see Annie last night and she was dumbfounded for the first sixty seconds at the action on stage and the song. She's watched Annie the movie perhaps a thousand times, maybe a million but when she saw actual kids on stage singing "Maybe" it was soo much for her process she couldn't move and then after that she couldn't stop grinning. She was glued to it, unmoving and when intermission came she almost cried "Is it over?! Is that it? What happens to Annie?" as if she hadn't seen the movie. "No honey they're just taking a break so we can go potty and get a drink, it's called intermission" I told her and she responded with "OOoooh, they paused it for us?"

Before the show we actually got to pet Sandy and meet Daddy Warbucks in the lobby and before that Ella and I went to this little shop up the street Chocolat by Daniel to eat up a little time, two ginger truffles and some orange soda. The whole time Ella was talking as if we were on our way to a movie. "Are we going to get popcorn?" she'd ask, "will they turn it up loud?" We'd been to plays and musicals before but lately something in my child has switched on, an awareness that she didn't have before. Lately she seems to be cataloguing memories and understanding humor and logic in a new sort of way, so it didn't surprise me that she really hadn't remembered being at the Coronado before. When we walked into the auditorium she looked up and gasped "Look mom STARS!" at the faux dark velvety sky and the twinkling lights embedded in it.

At the end, after happy tears and Annie's adoption, Ella and I lolly gagged around the theatre making a stop at the powder room and then going up to the lobby to sit in the fancy chairs and take pictures of each other. We were just waiting for the crowds to thin before we went for the door. Finally, we made our way to the lobby and while we donned coats she treated the remaining ushers and stragglers to an impromptu performance of "Tomorrow" and when she threw her arms out wide and crooned "A daaaaay a waaaaaaaaaayah!" we all clapped.

Thank you Dan.