This morning Leyna was back at it in the kitchen, this time mixing up batter for a batch of brownies. Boy, I certainly hope her Theater cronies and colleagues appreciate her hard labors because she’’s been sweating this. I think I finally understand why: At the end of a grueling production, the troupe members typically exchange gifts, which most kids purchase. Well, since we don’t have free access to rivers of cash, Leyna decided she would present home-baked goodies instead. Poor bunny… She so desperately wants to win their approval. She doesn’t yet understand that it doesn’t really matter what other people think of you.

So the sugar cookies are baked and sparkly and the brownies are amazing little chocolate bombs of deliciousness. All that remains to be done is baking the chocolate chip cookies. Oh, yeah, then we have to bag them up into 18 little individual gift portions and close the cellophane bags with pretty ribbon. Oh joy…

In a little while we’ll be leaving for the high school to see the play that the theater gang has been working so feverishly on. I’m looking forward to it but I want to sit as far away from other audience members as I can. Even though my white blood cell count is well into the normal range I don’t want to take any chances. We were planning on getting pizza afterward but now Leyna says she has to stay afterward to help break down the set. I sure will be glad when this is over. Her last performance is an all-day competition tomorrow in Cibolo with many other schools participating. She won’t be home until close to midnight. One of us is going to have to go pick her up. Blurgh.

The play was interesting. A couple of the young actors had to learn sign language for their parts because their characters were deaf. The performance began with a blank stage, props and scenery stacked in piles and boxes. In the competition tomorrow, theater groups will be graded on stage set-up as well as the actual performance. The theater teacher wanted to show the parents in the audience exactly what the theater techs and actors will be doing during the competition, so we got to watch as the techs, at a sign from the teacher, flew into action, charging around the stage setting up the play’s scenery and props. Points are deducted for anything dropped or any excess noise, so there wasn’t much sound coming from the stage other than hurried footsteps. They had seven minutes to complete set-up and made it in 6 minutes 40 seconds. Pretty cool!