Rachel hangs out with Angela

I had to go to a dinner tonight sponsored by the Oregon Area Jewish Committee (OAJC), of which I am a board member. It was a semi-swanky affair at the Governors Hotel in downtown Portland. I dressed up a bit more than usual for work, applied an extra dose of makeup and lots of perfume.

I felt like the stereotypical NYC mom who is way more successful and earns way more money than I do in real life as I raced to preschool, scooped up Rachel (who just ran to me and wrapped her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder without saying a word -- wonder if she was lonely today?), headed to Old Town to pick up our babysitter, Angela, then shoved Rachel's snack bags at Angela, along with my house keys, put Rachel's heavy coat on, then her backpack over that, then said a cheery goodbye as they waited in the cold for the bus to take them home. Luckily I had sort of bribed Rachel with the idea of taking a CITY BUS home to prevent her from fussing too much about missing Mommy tonight.

Angela took some hilarious video of Rachel on the bus and at home, singing songs from preschool and making up some of the words to other songs, like the ABC Song. Angela perfectly captured Rachel on the bus, saying the following after a woman leaned into her face and told her how adorable she was and went on and on about her backpack, and basically kept beaming at her the whole bus ride home. ("Kinda creepy," was Angela's verdict):

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Rachel told Angela. "I can talk to you because I know who you are, but I can't talk to people I don't know."

Good girl!

(The dinner was lovely, by the way -- excellent food and a nice presentation, but I was sure lonely for my Rachel. Thank goodness these obligations don't come up very often).